The congested Northwest, North and Gulf freeways are hot candidates for high occupancy-toll lanes, a Texas A&M researcher said late last week.

Under such an arrangement, HOV lanes currently restricted to carpools, buses and motorcycles would be opened to single-occupant vehicles for a fee.

The three freeways are included in the Metropolitan Transit Authority's proposal to convert five of its HOV lanes to high occupany-toll lanes.

Mark Burris, an assistant engineering professor and research scientist at the Texas Transportation Institute, said two other HOVs proposed for conversion — on the Eastex and Southwest freeways — are less crowded.

But he said Metro's HOV program has been so successful that even the Southwest HOV lane "has periods where the folks on the main lanes are going slow enough to be interested" in paying a toll.

Metro first approached the Texas Department of Transportation with the idea a year ago. TxDOT officials outlined the proposal last week.

 

Paucity of details

Metro officials have been reluctant to discuss the plan. A spokeswoman declined to comment Friday on how the plan would be implemented, whether it would be phased in or whether the HOV lanes would remain open while toll-scanning equipment is installed.

Spokeswoman Sandra Salazar said Metro wants to brief its board on these "policy questions" before discussing them with the media.

Metro CEO Frank Wilson said at the agency's board meeting last Thursday that Metro is receiving proposals from vendors to make the conversion and could start work late this year.

Reader response to the idea on the Chronicle Web site has been mostly negative, with some suggesting Metro wants to discourage HOV users in order to make room for toll-paying solo drivers.

The premise, as envisioned by proponents, is more subtle: If an HOV lane becomes congested under rules requiring at least two people in each vehicle, there is little choice but to bump that requirement to a minimum of three people. That likely would result in some unused lane space. Why not charge solo drivers to use that space, proponents say, raising the tolls as needed to keep traffic moving?

"Until a lane becomes quite congested with the two-plus requirement, I feel that it should stay at two-plus," Burris said.

Lanes that already are congested under the two-occupant minimum may need to go to a three-plus minimum to remain effective as HOV lanes — regardless of whether they charge a toll, Burris said.

 

Going up?

Any available space then could be used by toll-paying drivers without negating the lane's HOV function, he said.

"On the Northwest Freeway in the afternoon, it's getting to the point where they will have to raise the requirement." Burris said. "There's really no choice if you don't want the lane to slow down."

TxDOT traffic operations director Carlos Lopez said the toll option really could reduce HOV lane traffic, because "It's a lot harder to form a three-plus carpool than a two-plus carpool."

James Gallagher, Metro's director of ridership development, told state highway officials Thursday that Metro intends to begin operating the HOT lanes with current occupancy requirements in effect.

But TxDOT district engineer Gary Trietsch said that could change "after a week or a month" of operation, depending on how congested the HOT lanes turn out to be.

 

'Lexus lanes' guff

Burris said so few HOV lanes across the country have been converted to HOT lanes that it is hard to generalize about the results. But there usually is opposition to overcome, he said.

"Minneapolis took about 12 years to get theirs running" because of a perception that they were "Lexus lanes" designed to favor the wealthy, he said.

"In Maryland, the governor said he didn't want to hear the words 'HOT lanes' anymore," Burris said. The main headache there, Burris said, was coordinating the toll rules on roads that passed through multiple states and the District of Columbia in a short distance.

Burris said the easiest transition probably was in Houston when Metro began its QuickRide program on the Katy and Northwest freeways. The program allows two-occupant vehicles to use the HOV lane for a $2 fee during peak hours, when the three-plus requirement is in effect.

The move probably was accepted easily because "it wasn't seen as selling rides to single-occupant vehicles," he said.

Transportation Commission chairman Ric Williamson suggested Thursday that vehicles with three or more occupants receive a toll credit for the HOT lanes as a reward for carpooling. The credit could come out of TxDOT's share of revenue from the lanes, he said.

TxDOT has suggested splitting any profits from the lanes equally with Metro. Gallagher told the commission that Metro was "receptive" to the idea.

rad.sallee@chron.com