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Jed Boal ReportingIf you could pay to drive solo in the car pool lanes, would you do it? That's what the Utah Transportation Commission is considering and you might get that option this year.
You may be able to zip along in a toll lane on I-15 by the end of the year. It's not a done deal, but it's likely.
They're called "high-occupancy toll lanes," or HOT lanes. Right now UDOT says the carpool lanes have room for more cars. The state wants to take advantage of that capacity with the HOT lanes, in which you'd pay for the privilege to drive in the carpool lane without passengers.
Tom Hudachko, UDOT: "We feel relatively comfortable that if we do a HOT lane, it's going to benefit the entire system. We're going to use up the extra capacity that we have in the carpool lanes right now. At the same time, we're going to provide a benefit to the general purpose lanes, because we're taking traffic out of those lanes and putting them in the carpool lanes where there's the extra capacity."
By the end of the summer, Utah could have 36 miles of carpool lanes that could become HOT lanes. The Utah Transportation Commission today approved 100-thousand dollars to study the logistics of such a system -- striping the road, signage, preliminary engineering on how to make it work.
UDOT will also consider how much to charge for a HOT lane pass. It cannot be so cheap that everyone buys one, yet not so expensive that nobody buys one. Initially, you would likely place a sticker on your car to use the HOT lanes; eventually it would be electronic.
Financially, this system would help the state chip away at a massive deficit for road projects. Carpooling remains the top priority for those lanes. UDOT plans to make a final recommendation to the commission in April.
