Traveling the congested highways in the Baltimore-Washington region may take a psychological toll now. In the not-so-far-off future, the cost may be in dollars and cents.
Four major road projects in the region will open in the next five to 10 years with tolls attached. To drive on the Intercounty Connector being built in Prince George's and Montgomery counties, you'll have to pay the Maryland toll authority. The state will also take your money for using the new express lanes on Interstate 95 northeast of Baltimore.
To use the "express" lanes that bypass backups on three busy interstates in Northern Virginia, you'll need to pay a toll to the private operator that helped finance the construction.
And Maryland is considering the possibility of using tolls to add new lanes on several other highways across the state.
If forecasters are on the mark, the tolls won't be cheap. To keep traffic moving quickly in the express lanes being added to I-95 in Maryland and Virginia, some drivers will have to be priced out of those lanes. To keep the ICC free-flowing, some would-be travelers between Baltimore and Rockville will face prices so high that they'll choose to take local roads.
One recent study put the cost of a congestion-free ride from the Pentagon to Dumfries, Va., in the planned high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes of Interstates 95 and 395 at more than $20 for the roughly 35-mile trip. One way. For a five-day-a-week commuter, the weekly bill for congestion-free travel could exceed $200. A similar commute, along the Capital Beltway from Springfield to Tysons Corner, could be just as costly.
Ronald F. Kirby, transportation director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, said that when officials started considering those projects, they assumed that tolls would run about 20 cents a mile. But the council's subsequent studies have shown that to be a low estimate.
"The toll can get up to as high as $1 a mile or $1.50 a mile for short segments at certain times of the day," Kirby said.
And if you're thinking of heading that way the day before Thanksgiving in 2015, be warned. According to Kirby, there are no limits to the tolls the operator can charge to keep express traffic moving.
Maryland officials said they have made no projections of how much tolls will be on I-95 or the ICC.
To make sense economically, any highway project that relies on what is known as "congestion pricing" - having motorists pay to avoid sitting in traffic - can't eliminate backups in the other lanes entirely.
