Official Poll: I-85 HOT Lanes “most hated concept”

Official Poll: I-85 HOT Lanes “most hated concept” – A poll by InsiderAdvantage and WSB-TV has confirmed what metro Atlanta commuters have known for nearly two months now: the implementation of the I-85 HOT lane project has been a complete failure.

InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery told WSB reporter Lori Geary:

“It’s a total disaster. Without doubt one of the biggest blunders in the history of Georgia politics since I’ve been covering it.” 

Only 4% of those polled thought the project was effective, and 45% thought that the project had actually made traffic worse.

You can read WSB’s full report here.

Atlanta I-85 HOT Lane Protest Groups Form Coalition: Stolen Lanes

A trio of groups opposed to the use of High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes in Georgia have formed a coalition in support of their common cause.  Victor A. Ramkisson of Against The Peach Pass, Howard Rodgers of Stop the HOT Lane! and Chris K. Haley of Stop Peach Pass announced the creation of StolenLanes.org, a group that solidifies the community’s opposition to the use of HOT lanes in Georgia.

“The number of citizens represented by our combined coalition is a force to be reckoned with,” announced Howard Rodgers, “we’re nearing 10 thousand total supporters with the combined support of our groups.”

“The number of people opposed to the recent implementation of the HOT lanes keeps growing” said Victor Ramkisson. “This is not a problem that will go away without acknowledgement of the issue and a plan to correct it by SRTA and the Georgia Department of Transportation.”

Chris Haley stated “Our groups are banding together to support this cause and increase our strength in numbers”. He added “While some government officials try to downplay the seriousness of the impact to the community, we’re stepping up to be recognized.”

The coalition called for the community to support the planned I-85 HOT lane Town Hall meetingscheduled for 7pm on November 17, 2011. This non-partisan, educational night with policy makers is open to the public and will be hosted by coalition member StopTheHotLane.com.

It will be held at the Gwinnett Justice Center located at 75 Langley Drive, Lawrenceville, Georgia and moderated by J.K. Murphy, Editor of the Gwinnett Daily Post.

Numbers Don’t Lie: Portions of I-85 Now Handling Fewer Total Vehicles at Peak

Overview

The State Road and Toll Authority (SRTA) and other state officials have reported increased usage of the recently implemented I-85 HOT lanes in a positive light. However, this does not present a complete picture of the total effect of this system on the entire driving population. 

SRTA and other transportation officials have been unable (or unwilling) to report in any quantitative way the impact that the implementation has had on the general travel lanes. 

Trip times on HOT lanes are expected to be better than travel in the general lanes based on how the system was implemented. However, given SRTA’s own recent statistics of 7,000 HOT lane vehicles per day, when compared with the total volume on I-85 at the SR120 monitoring point (aproximately 75,000 vehicles per day in each direction), it’s clear that more than 90% of vehicles continue to use the general traffic lanes.

Using the Georgia Department of Transporation’s own automatic data collection system, I have analyzed the traffic volume data for I-85 at a collection point just south of SR120 for the periods of time just before and after the conversion of the HOV lanes to HOT (Express) lanes. The collected data shows a significant negative impact on traffic flow during the peak commuting hours.

Data Source

I obtained I-85 traffic volume for two separate three week periods in September and October 2011 using data that is publicly available from the Georgia Department of Transportation’s online Traffic Polling and Analysis System (TPAS).

This system reports 24-hour traffic data that is collected from Automatic Traffic Recorders (ATRs) located throughout the state of Georgia. In most cases, ATRs are permanent devices that are installed under the surface of the roadways. 

Traffic data for the collection point at I-85 just south of SR120 was used. This collection point is within the nearly 16 mile stretch of I-85 which was converted to a HOT (toll) lane configuration from an HOV configuration on 10/1/2011. Vehicle volume data from TPAS for this point is reported on an hourly basis for both the northbound and southbound directions.

Methodology

Only data for the peak Monday – Friday commute days was used. In addition, data for the Labor day holiday (9/5/2011) was excluded since the traffic volume was significantly lower and travel patterns were significantly different on that day.

Two separate, three-week reporting periods were sampled, immediately prior to the implementation of the I-85 Express Lanes (9/5/2011 – 9/23/2011) and immediately after the implementation (10/3/2011 – 10/21/2011).

The collected data for for individual hours was averaged for the two separate periods. The resulting numbers show the average vehicle counts per hour during the peak commute days Monday to Friday.

Results

I have made the collected data, calculations and resulting graphs publicly available here (and as a Google Spreadsheet here). The following graphs from that spreadsheet summarize the traffic data for northbound and southbound travel lanes before and after the I-85 Express Lane conversion.