Drivers urged to plan now for new toll lanes
Your commute on Interstate 95 is going to change sooner than we thought.
The 95 Express Lanes, or HOT lanes, from Garrisonville Road in North Stafford to Edsall Road in Alexandria will open in December. That’s about a month earlier than what we were originally told, and now drivers are being told to prepare to use the new lanes where tolls will be charged 24-hours a day but also free for vehicles with three or more occupants.
“The 95 Express Lanes are on track for an early opening which means drivers should start preparing now,” said VDOT Commissioner Charlie Kilpatrick in a press release. “The conversion from the existing HOV lanes to Express Lanes will mean changes in traffic patterns, rules of the road and an E-ZPass requirement. The new Express Lanes will impact all drivers who travel on I-95 so it’s important that everyone educate themselves on how the 95 Express Lanes will work.”
When the lanes open, all drivers will need an E-Z Pass to use the all-electronic toll booths to enter the lanes. Unlike other toll roads in the state, the 95 Express Lanes and the 495 Express Lanes on the Capital Beltway from Springfield to Dulles Toll Road do not have manned toll booths.
Virginia still owns the lanes, but private firm Fluor-Transurban will operate and maintain them under a public-private partnership agreement. When work began to in summer 2012 to convert I-95’s HOV lanes to toll lanes, the lanes were extended south from Dumfries to North Stafford to create a 29-mile express lanes corridor on the highway.
A website exists for drivers who want to find out more about how to use the lanes and where to get an E-Z Pass. The lanes will feature dynamic pricing where prices will rise as more single drivers enter the lanes, and prices will fall as fewer drivers use the lanes. An E-Z Pass will lock in the variable toll rate single drivers will pay for their trip, and those rates will vary on how far drivers travel in the lanes.
Drivers with three or more occupants inside their vehicles can use an E-Z Pass Flex transponder which has a toggle switch that allows them to switch between single-driver mode and carpooler mode. Drivers in carpooling mode are not charged to use the lanes.
