Toll lanes coming to the QEW

High-occupancy toll lane pilot project will allow motorists without passengers to pay to use high-occupancy-vehicle lanes.

Thestar.com
Dec. 7, 2015
By Kalinowski

Single occupant vehicle drivers will have the option of paying for a permit to use the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes on a 16.5 km. stretch of the Queen Elizabeth Way in Oakville and Burlington next summer.

But it will be spring before the province says how much motorists will pay and how they will buy the permits in Ontario’s first foray into high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes.

The HOT lanes running in both directions between Trafalgar Rd. in Oakville and Guelph Line in Burlington, will remain free to drivers carrying at least one passenger or those with a green licence plate that signifies they drive an environmentally-friendly vehicle.

“Through this pilot we will improve performance on the QEW, introduce the HOT concept to the region and gather information that will help inform our long term plan,” said Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca on Monday.

He did not say how many permits - likely to be issued on a monthly basis - will be released. Although about 1,000 could be phased in over time, it will depend on the traffic impacts on that road.

“That stretch of the QEW is the stretch within our existing HOV network where this is enough capacity in the HOV for us to draw more cars out of the general purpose lanes without clogging up the HOT/HOV.

We have other HOVs in the GTA (where) if they were to become HOTs would effectively make that HOT/HOV counterproductive,” he said.

The QEW lane pilot project will be followed by HOT electronic tolling on Highway 427 between Rutherford Rd. and Highway 409 when the highway extension opens in 2021.

The initial permits will likely be visible on the vehicle and the province has already discussed enforcement with the Ontario Provincial Police, said Del Duca.

HOT lanes are being used in at least 13 jurisdictions, including Israel, Minneapolis, Seattle and Atlanta.

The initial permit system on the QEW is loosely based on a Utah toll road. That state ran a pilot program on one of its highways for about four years between 2006 and 2010 using a similar permit process where drivers paid about $50 a month to access the HOT lanes.

But the minister stressed that Ontario’s HOT lane prices won’t necessarily be the same.

“We have more analysis to do over the coming months,” he said.

Utah has since installed electronic Highway 427-style tolling on the same road, he added.

Electronic tolling makes it possible to add dynamic pricing to HOT lanes - adjusting the cost to the driver according to the time of day or traffic levels. That’s something the government will talk about as it gets closer to launching the HOT lanes on Highway 427, said Del Duca.

Queen’s Park has been talking about testing HOT lanes for about two years. But lately, the Liberal government has been touting lessons learned from the introduction of temporary HOV lanes during the Pan Am Games last summer. During the games, drivers were required to have at least three people in a vehicle to use the HOV lanes.

Del Duca said he wanted to get the word out by the end of the year to give drivers a warning on the HOT lane launch so everyone has the chance to absorb “a fairly fundamental change.”

Monday’s rollout is only the beginning of the government’s HOT plan. It hopes to build a network of the toll roads, he said.

In an earlier announcement, Del Duca had suggested HOT lanes could be created on any new or expanded highways such as Highway 401 near Cambridge.

With congestion costing the Toronto region more than $6 billion a year in lost productivity, he said,
“Anything we can do to be creative to alleviate congestion on our highways helps. It helps improve quality of life, it helps commercial goods get to market quicker.”

“This is another weapon in the arsenal that we have with respect to being creative to fight congestion in this region,” said Del Duca.

When the Highway 427 extension opens, the government expects 36 million vehicles using it annually will travel in carpools, accessing the HOT lanes free. About 5 million single-occupant drivers will be willing to pay to use the HOT lanes.

There have been numerous reports, including two in the last month from Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission and the Pembina Institute, calling for road pricing as a way of reducing congestion, pollution and raising revenue for transit and other public expenses.

The opposition parties at Queen’s Park criticized the HOT lane plan, calling it a tax on roads.

“The Lexus lanes are not something I think is the right way to go,” said Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath in November.