Free rides might be hard to come by on I-405 with changes to HOV rules

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Your free ride in the I-405 HOV lane could be coming to an end over the next year. The state is considering a plan to require three people in your car to ride for free.

You’ve likely seen the cameras and sensors going in on I-405 between SR 522 and I-5 in Lynnwood. They will also soon be going in from 522 south to downtown Bellevue. The state is going to launch the new express toll lanes on that stretch of I-405 by fall 2015.

The big question is will you need two or three people to ride in the express toll lanes for free?

Right now, you only need two people in the car to ride in the HOV lane, and the executive director of the Washington State Transportation Commission Reema Griffith said that’s not working.

“During peak periods, it’s failing,” Griffith said. “It’s stopping. It’s congested just like the general purpose lanes.”

Griffith said the commission is starting the conversation in Olympia Tuesday about changing the carpool requirement to three people with the goal of getting that lane to move more freely.

“(We would require) a three-plus HOV during those peak hours and then it would shift-back to two-plus in the off-peak, because we aren’t seeing the degradation in the off-peak that we do doing the rush hour. It’s an improvement for drivers who want to have a better commute and want that reliability,” Griffith said.

Express toll lanes, like the ones currently in use on SR 167, have had a positive impact on congestion. Drivers using those lanes are now saving about eight minutes a trip, on average.

“If you look across the country, look at HOV policy and how they’ve converted to toll lanes where people can buy in, typically when you add price, it creates a better flow for those lanes,” she said.

Some critics say this is just the first step to increasing the carpool requirements across the state and another step to tolling every road.

Griffith said there is no need, at least right now, to expand the carpool requirements anywhere else.

“You want those lanes to be used so you have to be careful not to go too far and say ‘three-plus for everybody,'” she said. “In a lot of cases, two-plus is still working quite well, so it’s really got to be more of a case-by-case need.”

The commission is just beginning its discussion and it will come up with a proposal by the end of November. It will take public comments and hold public meetings through January.

The commission will make its final decision in the spring, which is at about the same time the Good To Go program will unveil its new “Flex Pass.” It’s a transponder that will allow drivers to switch the pass between toll and free mode.