A new carpool lane on southbound Interstate 680 between Treat Boulevard and Rudgear Road through Walnut Creek opened Monday, on budget and a year ahead of schedule, Bay Area transportation officials said.
The opening of the new stretch closes a gap between two other previously completed carpool lane/express lane zones, resulting in a 25-mile continuous southbound carpool (or paid FasTrak toll lane) from Martinez to San Ramon, officials from the Contra Costa Transportation Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission said.
The Treat-to-Rudgear project work began in October 2018, and was originally planned for a late 2021 opening. But an accelerated project schedule included allowing motorists to use the lane as a high-occupancy vehicle carpool lane while the MTC installs and tests the express lane tolling equipment.
aka: We are a year early to reduce your available lanes to the peons to further slow your commute, so just pay us more money instead for something that was paid by taxpayers.
Exactly. And they make it sound like they’re doing us a favor.
I totally agree. Thank you Newsom for screwing us a year early.
@CL
Amen!!
Agree with Stove. Plus lots of swear words.
Anonymous replier may want to check on his anger towards Newsome
Project started in 2018 so probably went into planning what 2014 or 2015? Newsome became governor in 2019. How did Newsome make these carpool/pay lanes?
Idiots
Guaranteed the contractor received an early completion bonus.
And already slower traffic with the road boulders and last minute lane changers to 24…..!
Serious question….
Its free if you are carpooling. How does the meter know not to charge you if there is a driver and say a baby or child in the back that isn’t visible to the cameras?
You should have a Fasttrak transponder with a switch that can be set to 1, 2 or 3+, indicating how many people are in the car. If you’re thinking about just setting it to 2 and driving solo in the lane in order to not pay, the sign above blinks twice when you drive under it, and you will get a ticket if the CHP sees that happen without the requisite number of people in the car.
@JN-
fasttrak requires a minimum balance which is just a free loan to the state, they already get too much of money which they use for failed social programs like cell phones for the homeless.
Screw these commuter lanes. For starters, on 680 between Walnut Creek and Benicia bridge the lanes are almost empty. So now the second lane is the fast lane and people drive brain-dead at 65mph holding up the rest of us that prefer to move a little faster than the antiquated speed limit. Also we all paid for those lanes so we should all be able to use them. Want to help traffic? Keep the slow cars to the right. Get people off their phones. Don’t ticket speeders (unless they’re reckless) but ticket people on phones and people who block traffic by being an impediment.
Widening the gap between the rich and the poor at taxpayer expense. This should be illegal and I can’t understand why somebody hasn’t been sued. Taxpayers deserve better than to be priced out of the use of their own bought-and-paid-for highways.
This state can’t solve homelessness. But they sure know how to get things done when it comes to taxing you.
don’t forget that they want to up our taxes again, now in the middle of this whole pandemic with people out of work, some laid off. it just goes to show how those who govern us really think
http://claycord.com/2020/07/28/contra-costa-county-proposed-sales-tax-measure-moves-ahead/
The state needs the revenues such a lane provides, and will be implemented in more and more highways.As Stove pointed out, we already PAYED for the lane and are PAYING for the conversion to a toll lane.
A perfect application of Don Perata’s trick, if tax measures don’t pass. Up the cost and use of fees,tolls,surcharges,registration and licensing. He term limited out of office, but his principles are in play today.
don perata was the SOB behind the bridge tolls going from 75 cents to $5+, GD democrat, tax and spend
I am glad
I hope we soon have to pay to use any lane
And if you can’t afford it
Don’t clog our roads, use the bus
@F
you are likely a troll, but are there buses that can take folks to work?
I’ve been saying this forever. When the gas tax increases and everyone cried, I was like add another $5 per gallon and put all the money into public transit and make it free. I would rather pay more money and spend less time on the road.
I love it when infrastructure improvements are made – the kind that make the road safer, or more convenient, or faster.
I don’t like car-pool lanes because, while the regular traffic is going 10 mph at rush-hour, the car-pool lane traffic might be going 70, just six feet away from them. All it takes is a moment’s inattention and there could be a horrible accident. I don’t like to drive in the lane next to the car-pool lane for that reason. All the traffic should be going at more or less the same speed.
But these improvements are just a way of picking our pockets.
Eventually, there will be two parallel FasTrak lanes and then, one day in the future, our freeways will be nothing but turnpikes.
more people here every day and the number of lanes for everyone is reduced to make a new carpool lane. what a crock!
The lane is so narrow at parts, kinda scary!
Don’t approve > Not a union-sponger
This lane is a joke! I thought CalTrans was going to re-surface 680 southbound before they put in the striping for the express lane, but they didn’t. Every lane is full of potholes and uneven pavement. Everyday this state gives me more and more reasons to pack and move.
Just another way to suck our hard earned dollars, for those of us that can work, away from us. What a joke Newscum bet your Auntie and Chuckie Schumer, Harris and Becton are all patting you on the head. Good puppet.
These lanes are slowing traffic and are not necessary. Yet another way to steal from us. Glad so many of us are on the same page.
As someone who directly benefits from this….yay! Free for EVs!
Once we stop working from home and have to commute again, this will be helpful in the morning.
And of course they haven’t bothered to actually repave that sorry excuse for an Interstate.
Folks, this will only get worse.
“According to a letter dated Aug. 1, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission wants to eventually implement congestion pricing on all lanes of many if not most Bay Area freeways…To lower greenhouse gas emissions, MTC envisions the “eventual transition to congestion pricing on all freeway lanes in corridors with robust transit options,” according to the letter and adds “express lanes can be a stepping stone to more extensive congestion pricing strategies.”
MTC is asking the nine Bay Area counties to sign off on the letter, including the above plan for freeway tolling so it can be included in the Plan Bay Area 2050 draft blueprint. For most major transportation projects to proceed from conception to implementation, inclusion in that plan is a key requirement.
This is basically a double tax on poorer working people like myself. If you don’t want it to now take even longer to get to work because people are now being crammed into fewer lanes, you can pay the government more to drive in the special lane. Before being furloughed due to Covid, I commuted South 680 to the South Bay to work every day. I occasionally would not be able to run a few minutes late and would use the existing “Express Lane.” It would save a good 10-15 minutes, and only cost me $6-$10 one way. This is outrageous to me that we pay taxes to build these roads, but now have to pay again for the pleasure of using them.
That’s why I never vote for road improvements. They just find a way to stick it to you with your own money!
Eventually Government wants to take away your right to drive. So, they will continue to tax your gas, your roads and bridges. They are waiting for self driving cars to take over. At that point, you will be charged so much for insurance, you will be forced into using self driving cars so they can track your every move, since you will have to pay with a card. It’s just another freedom that you will be forced to give up.
Wow! They built a revenue-generating express lane ahead of schedule. If the marvel of all wonders never cease! Now, if they could only move that fast on projects that everyone can use for free.
PSA☆: If you choose to drive in the express lane, especially when it’s close to $9 to use it, you are expected to move at a faster pace than the lane on your right. If you do not enjoy the faster speeds, be polite and move to the right. ☆