A scene from that classic, Blazing Saddles. They should have bought a FlexPass…
A lot of truth and a bit of levity on the topic published in several Reporters…
While we wait for WSDOT’s data, the people already know the results:
Tolls do NOT reduce congestion as proven by the results of first putting a toll on the carpool lanes. Traffic was horrendous at all times, even on weekends. (mixed results where a lane was added because of the additional capacity.)
Then the toll was disabled during nights and weekends. During those times traffic now flows wonderfully. Undeniable, overwhelming proof. The silly idea that Express Toll Lanes would reduce congestion is a myth. MYTH BUSTED!
Stop405Tolls 
How big a fool do you think we are??? 37 cars on the left and 12 on the right. this doesn’t show anything … if there are less cars..less traffic.. Put in 37 cars on the right with no HOV lane and everyone is going to be jammed up … at least WITH hov those car poolers CAN move at a reasonable speed. This is just a bunch of hooey from a jealous single occupant drive. HOV DOES WORK ,,AND WORK WELL.. You just have to not be a self centered jerk.
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David Dayle Rice:
First, this is a forum to have intelligent dialog and discussion. There is zero tolerance for personal attacks or trolling.
Second, take a moment and get an understanding of our position before you assume anything. It’s an editorial cartoon, not a technical graphical representation. If you take the time to read our position, we adamantly support HOV lanes as HOV lanes. In fact, one of the main arguments we have against HOT lanes is that the went from being 100% HOV to 85%+ SOV (Single Occupancy Vehicles). Even the 2 person carpools MUST PAY during peak hours. Understand that 2 person carpools made up 90%+ of the cars in the carpool lane before the tolls.
Because they actually took away sections that had 4 GPL (General Purpose Lanes) and made various flow changes, like the merge at 520 and because they added the requirement of a FlexPass, traffic has become congested on weekends where it never happened in the past.
Go read the text of the petition so you can speak to the issue knowing the facts. For more info in a concise package, click through this slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/davehabl/stop405tollsorg-presentation-to-wa-state-house-transportation-committee
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David Doyle Rice, living in Des Moines, you might also consider what is going to happen when they pursue the rest of their objective to replace the carpool lanes with 3+ person HOT lanes on I-5 and on the rest of I-405 and SR167.
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Saw this website on the back of a guy’s pickup, thought I might chime in. As a medic, i drive an ambulance up and down the eastside all day, often putting 200 miles on my rig in a day. I also commute from the renton highlands to shoreline three days a week. The toll lanes are awful. I use them in my ambulance, but they are no better or worse than before the tolls, and on Saturdays, with the tolls, nobody wants to take the 405, so they drive into seattle and plug it up at the convention center, which forces me to take the 405, adding substantially to my commute. What this has caused for me in ems, is that the right lanes are now noticeably more congested. This makes merging over to take an exit on the way to a call or a hospital much more dangerous and difficult, especially with lights and sirens.
And since they started these toll lanes up, they now spend a lot of time at night closing huge portions of the roads and exits seemingly at random in order to do maintenance to various systems, which makes our jobs much more difficult.
Overall i think the whole thing is a huge failure. If they want to take improve traffic, improve the road surface, improve on and offramps, and make the roads a consistent number of lanes the entire length. Merging is the major cause of traffic, smoothing that process is what will make true change.
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Colin, thank you for the comment. They failed to get input from any citizens before doing this, much less emergency vehicle operators. WSP even stated these were a bad idea. The weekends are now open to all with not tolls, so that should at least not be a problem.
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