Toll roads coming
Days of free and open roads are dimming in Los Angeles after the federal government offered $213.6 million to launch a one-year toll road pilot program by the end of 2010 in an effort to boost speeds on three sluggish freeways.
With a promise to keep traffic flowing no slower than 50 mph in car-pool lanes converted to express lanes, toll lanes will straddle freeways through Pasadena and between downtown Los Angeles and east Los Angeles County. Sue Doyle in the Daily News.
Motorists cruising the Harbor Freeway could also see toll lanes, depending on how far the federal money stretches with the one-year program shared by Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
"This is a great day for us," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. "This is one important tool to relieve traffic and gridlock in this area."
The toll lanes are designed to enforce congestion pricing, a strategy that aims to make driving freeways more expensive during peak traffic times so noncommuters will stay off the roads during rush hours.