Major Projects

Interstates 95/395/495 HOV/Bus/HOT Lanes Projects

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I-95/395 | I-495
Transit/TDM study

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VirginiaHOTLanes.com
Fluor-Transurban's HOV/Bus/HOT lanes project site

Department of Rail and Public Transportation
Web site for the I-95/395 Transit Plan and
Transportation Demand Management Study

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VDOT's public meeting schedule

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I-95 HOV/Bus/HOT Lanes

What’s Being Done?

The Interstate 95/395 HOV/Bus/HOT Lanes project will expand the existing High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes on I-95/395 from two to three lanes and extend two new lanes south to Massaponax.

All of these lanes will become High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes — meaning buses and carpools with three or more people can continue to use the lanes free, while non-HOV motorists can choose to pay a toll to access the lanes.

The reversible lanes provide congestion relief in peak periods, carrying traffic into major employment areas during the morning rush hours and reversing to carry traffic to suburban areas in the evenings.

Tolls will be based on demand. They will change throughout the day according to real-time traffic conditions to manage the number of cars in the HOV/Bus/HOT lanes and keep them free of congestion — even during rush hour.

The project is designed to improve conditions on the existing HOV lanes with additional capacity, enhanced incident-response and enforcement efforts, and new design strategies aimed at improving existing bottlenecks.

The Virginia HOV/Bus/HOT lanes projects are being developed as a public-private partnership between the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and Fluor-Transurban.

Under this partnership agreement, VDOT will own and oversee the lanes and Fluor-Transurban will construct, operate and provide routine maintenance on them.

The Public-Private Transportation Act of 1995 is the legislative framework that enables the commonwealth, local governments and other public entities to enter into agreements with private entities to acquire, construct, improve, maintain, and/or operate qualifying transportation facilities. The act provides a unique mechanism for supplementing public funds available for transportation in the commonwealth.

Project Update

VDOT and Fluor-Transurban signed an interim agreement on Oct. 24, 2006, to advance the I-95/395 HOV/Bus/HOT Lanes project. Fluor-Transurban is presently moving forward with preliminary engineering, operations plans, and traffic and revenue studies while VDOT manages the federal environmental review process.

Environmental Process

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to consider potential environmental consequences of transportation improvements, document the analyses, and make the information available to the public for comment before implementation.

VDOT initiated the federal environmental reviews in November 2006 with FHWA.

Since HOV lanes already exist in the northern section, making the change from HOV to the HOV/Bus/HOT system will be less complex. The environmental reviews for this section can be streamlined and results documented in a Categorical Exclusion.

The southern section of the corridor will require constructing new lanes. VDOT will work with FHWA to complete an Environmental Assessment to document possible impacts to the environment.

Map of I-95-395
HOV/Bus/HOT Lanes.
Click to enlarge.

VDOT and FHWA will evaluate the potential environmental and community impacts of the proposed transportation improvement and make the results available to the public at a series of future public hearings.

For more information on the NEPA process, visit the FHWA Web site at http://environment.fhwa.dot.gov/projdev/index.asp.