Ontario gives go-ahead for high-occupancy toll lanes,

Solo drivers will be allowed in carpool lanes — at a price

Drivers travelling alone will have the option of paying to speed along the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes on the Queen Elizabeth Way in Oakville and Burlington next summer.

But it will be spring before the province says how much motorists will pay for that privilege and how they will buy the permits in Ontario’s first foray into high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes.

The HOT lanes will run in both directions for 16.5 kilometres between Trafalgar Rd. in Oakville and Guelph Line in Burlington. They will remain free to drivers carrying at least one passenger and those with a green licence plate that signifies they drive an environmentally friendly vehicle, Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca said Monday.

“No general-purpose lanes in the provincial highway network will be removed or converted in order to deliver on the HOT plan. Any individual who currently drives in a general purpose lane will continue to have that opportunity going forward. At the same time, anybody who chooses to carpool will be able to use the HOT lanes, just as they can currently use HOV lanes, for free,” he said.

About 30,000 vehicles a day travel the QEW HOV lanes in both directions, and 165,000 more use the general purpose lanes.

Unlike some other regional HOV lanes, that stretch has the capacity to accommodate the HOT lane pilot, Del Duca said.

“Anybody who chooses to carpool will be able to use the HOT lanes . . . for free.” STEVEN DEL DUCA TRANSPORTATION MINISTER

He suggested about 1,000 monthly permits could be phased in over time.

It’s likely they will be placed visibly on the vehicles to aid enforcement, he said.

Optional tolls are welcome for commuters from Burlington, who complain of a “terrible bottleneck” in that area, said Mayor Rick Goldring.

He was initially disappointed by the news because the hope originally was that HOV lanes would encourage enough carpooling to ease congestion. “However, (the government) makes the point that there is some unused capacity there, they can make some money, and it can be used toward the GO regional express rail (expansion). That makes perfect sense to me,” he said.

At least 13 jurisdictions, including highways in Israel, Minneapolis, Seattle and Atlanta, use HOT lanes.

The initial permit system on the QEW is loosely based on the program in Utah, which launched a permit-based system for $50 a month in 2006 before moving to electronic tolling in 2010. But Ontario’s HOT lane prices won’t necessarily be the same, the minister stressed.

“We have more analysis to do over the coming months,” he said.

The QEW HOT lanes will be followed by electronic HOT-lane tolls on a new stretch of Hwy. 427 between Rutherford Rd. and Hwy. 409 when it opens in 2021.

Using an electronic system makes it possible to adjust the toll according to the time of day or traffic levels. The government estimates that about 36 million vehicles will carry carpools on those HOT lanes when the Hwy. 427 extension opens.

About 5 million single-occupant drivers will be willing to pay.

Del Duca defended the announcement’s lack of details, saying he wanted to warn drivers of the HOT lane launch so everyone has the chance to absorb “a fairly fundamental change.”

With congestion costing the Toronto region more than $6 billion a year in lost productivity, he said, “Anything we can do to be creative to alleviate congestion on our highways helps. It helps improve quality of life, it helps commercial goods get to market quicker.”

A limited lane launch is wise, said Elliott Silverstein, manager of government relations for the Canadian Automobile Association’s South Central Ontario chapter.

He said the government needs to demonstrate that motorists will get a return on their investment if they pay the toll.

“If they’re going to see a savings in time or a quality of life, they may have more appetite. If you’re simply paying more money to be stuck in the same type of traffic, you’re not going to win over a lot of motorists,” he said.

Opposition parties at Queen’s Park slammed the announcement for being short on detail — Progressive Conservative MPP Michael Harris dubbed it “HOT lane bling” — and for making drivers pay a second time for a road they’ve already funded.

“There’s more questions than answers here,” said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who accused the government of creating a “diversion” from a highly critical auditor general’s report last week.

Horwath said motorists need to know who will be able to get the permits and how much they will cost, whether the money raised will go toward public transit and about the “fairness” of HOT lanes in general.

“We’re concerned about whether or not this is just a way for people who have a lot more money to pay their way to get to work faster than the rest of us or people who can’t afford to get to work quicker.”

Harris, his party’s transportation critic, said the HOT lane pilot is a “plan to dig into our wallets to pay for their failures,” noting the government hasn’t done enough to fight highway gridlock after 12 years in power. With files from Rob Ferguson