Letter: Study San Diego’s way to ease traffic jams

Monday, Dec. 25, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

Regarding the Las Vegas Sun's Dec. 19 story, "Looking at Lexus Lanes," ironically, it is not the Soccer Moms or Lexus owners who profit most from these hybrid lanes, but small- and large-business owners who know the value of time and money that is lost daily by sitting in traffic jams.

High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes give individual drivers the option to pay to join carpoolers (for whom usage is free) in these lanes only if they choose to do so to avoid congestion. The Las Vegas Sun might take a look at the Interstate 15 FasTrac program in San Diego, a project I happened to be directly involved in as a project manager.

It has been funded and run by the San Diego Association of Governments (Sandag) since the late 1990s with great success and very high public acceptance at all income levels. While the private contractor that built the lanes made a little profit on installation, Sandag receives the recurring revenue from motorists who choose to use the lanes based on personal choice and pricing that automatically varies with the degree of congestion. That revenue not only pays for the HOT lanes themselves, but it also puts additional funds back into other transportation projects.

The broad cost-benefit of HOT lanes would well serve all Las Vegans who are facing increasing roadway congestion and should be seriously explored and not demonized by the ill-conceived 90s' tag of "Lexus Lanes."

Don Brady, Las Vegas