The line here for them snaked outside the door as the sun set one afternoon. Anyone wanting to use the high-speed lanes has to buy a transponder for $40. But we remind them that these tolls are optional.
#110 freeway express toll drivers#
“Solo drivers feel like it’s a double tax. “It’s definitely a concern that we’ve heard,” she said. Wiggins, who is running the program for the county’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, acknowledged the resistance. Still, in a city marked by stark differences in wealth, the notion of being able to pay to escape traffic rankles. The $20 million expected to be raised annually by the toll is going to expand bus lines in the region. “It’s worth it if you’re in a hurry to get home,” he said. Richard Galvaz, who lives in El Monte, said the toll was a fair price to escape what can be a 45-minute drive. distinguishes itself as the traffic congestion capital of the nation, we felt obligated to innovate, experiment, whatever we can do to make driving on the freeways more bearable.” “People want relief,” said Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Los Angeles County supervisor.
Villaraigosa has advocated a sharp expansion of the region’s subway system and encouraged bicycle use. The tolls are the latest manifestation of a campaign by Los Angeles officials to challenge the primacy of the automobile to deal with congestion that has long been a threat to the city’s vitality. “And we’ll likely rebel against the very idea of paying to drive on public highways.” “To us, it’s still passing strange,” the editors said. And the East Coast and Chicago grew up on toll roads.” “Our neighbors in Orange and Riverside Counties have long had the ‘choice’ of paying for free-flowing freeway access. “We Angelenos are the last of the Mohicans on this issue,” The San Gabriel Valley Tribune wrote in an editorial. Around the country, in the most congested areas, people are understanding that we don’t have a lot of options.” “It’s a very tough sell for the public,” she said. Genevieve Giuliano, the director of the National Center for Metropolitan Transportation Research at the University of Southern California, said the increasing crush of traffic here, combined with cutbacks in federal highway construction funds, made these kinds of programs more urgent.
And the county has a nearby example to study, since congestion pricing began in neighboring Orange County in 1995. Carpoolers (defined, generously, as a vehicle carrying two passengers), motorcycles and buses still travel free. It is a one-year pilot program, financed by the federal government. The toll applies to 11 miles of roadway, with another 14-mile stretch on Interstate 10 to open toll lanes next year. Los Angeles County is only putting a toe in the water. Miguel Chavez, 26, who lives in downtown Los Angeles, asked the question that has been reverberating across the city: “What else are they going to start charging us for?” This is the first toll in the history of Los Angeles County, a passage, as it were, and a jarring experience for a part of the country that has long celebrated the primacy of automobiles, not to mention the first syllable of the word “freeway.” And never mind that the toll’s reach here is limited to lone drivers willing to pay up to $1.40 a mile, depending on traffic, for a money-back guarantee that their average speed will never drop below 45 miles per hour. Never mind that tolls have been around as long as dirt roads and covered bridges, and that congestion pricing - as this is known - has become embraced by metropolises across the country to combat traffic and pollution. last Saturday, motorists faced a toll of up to $15.40 for the privilege of driving an 11-mile stretch of express lanes between Gardena and downtown Los Angeles.
#110 freeway express toll free#
They call them freeways for a reason.īut one of the symbols of the American freeway - Interstate 110, which runs, or rather crawls, across central Los Angeles - is free no more.
0 kommentar(er)
