Several freeway HOV segments in the Puget Sound region now fail to meet the adopted speed and reliability standard (45 mph, 90 percent of the time). The result is decreased person throughput, reduced transit efficiency, and diminished incentives to commute via high occupancy vehicle modes of travel. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) needs to develop a plan that responds to these growing problems by identifying near-term (within 5 years) actions for improving HOV system performance.
This document describes a project to identify problem locations on I-5, determine the primary causes of congestion in the HOV lane, and develop, evaluate, and recommend improvements and policy modifications that will result in improved HOV lane performance. If funding permits, routes in addition to I-5 will also be examined.

No work was performed on this project during the first six months of 2009. The project is currently on hold. The intent was to use the remaining budget in this project to respond to questions and concerns that arose during the 2009 legislative session. No HOV issues arose.

Late in calendar year 2009, it is expected that work will begin again on this project. The specific tasks to be undertaken will be defined by Charles Prestrud in WSDOT's Urban Corridors office. The most likely research task will be an examination of the amount of delay caused by friction between slow moving gneral purpose lanes, and faster moving HOV lanes.

None

Results from earlier work showed that there were multiple causes of congestion in the I-5 HOV lanes. No simple, inexpensive solution exists for removing that congestion without significantly reducing the person throughput currently carried.