Interstate 405 toll lanes turning 2 years old

The Express Toll Lanes on Interstate 405 will be 2 years old on Sept. 27.

Ed Barry, head of the toll division at the Washington State Department of Transportation, said, “We think it’s going well.”

David Hablewitz of stop405tolls.org had a very different take.

“It’s just as bad as it was from the beginning,” he said.

The state law that authorized the toll lanes requires they generate enough money to pay for tolling operations.

It’s easy to check that box as the lanes brought in $38.6 million in the first 21 months.

But WSDOT is falling short in a second provision.

It requires speeds of 45 miles per hour at least 90 percent of the time during peak commutes.

The latest numbers, as of June, show overall those speeds are reached only 81 percent of the time.

“The fact that we’re not meeting the goal says what we’ve been saying since day one, these aren’t going to make things better,” Hablewitz said.

If it were not for one word in the law, the state would have to shut down the tolls.

That word is “and.”

The law says after two years if the revenue “and” speed performance measures are not met, “the express lanes project must be terminated as soon as practicable.”

Barry said despite missing the speed target set by the federal government, “we don’t think any federal highway dollars are at stake.”

Barry said a northbound shoulder lane in Bothell is improving traffic flow, and that speeds in the areas with two-lane sections for the toll lanes exceed the 90 percent goal.

Final numbers for the first two years of tolling are expected later in the year.