Time is money.
The cost of that time in the I-405 express toll lanes has been climbing since they opened Sept. 27, hitting the $10 maximum for the first time during a post-flood morning commute Thursday.
The vast majority of toll-lane drivers weren’t actually paying $10, a high fee meant to dissuade too many more vehicles from entering the lanes.
Still, it’s a sign that plenty of people are forking over cash to merge left.
Jeryl Garrett commutes from Stanwood to Bellevue once a week and pays to travel the toll lanes. The highest she’s paid is $7.
“If it had been ($10) I would still have taken it — complained and grumbled, but taken it. My commute is just too long not to,” Garrett said.
Brian Derr, of Bothell, has paid as much as $6 for his commute to Kirkland in the toll lanes. “I pay because it can cut my commute in half: from 40 to 20 minutes.”
Peter Moreno commutes with his wife from Marysville to the eastside, which before tolling meant a free ride in the carpool lane. They now pay for the same 1.5-hour drive home.
“We are closing in on $200 spent on the tolls … We have to pay, otherwise it will take even longer to get home,” he said.
The average toll for the morning commute southbound I-405 increased from $1.50 the first week of tolling to $3.75 the first week of December as more people started using the lanes. For the evening rush northbound, the average toll went up from $1.25 to $3.
Tolls typically didn’t go above $5 for the morning rush and $4 for evening in November. But those peak price points already were $1 to $2 higher than the typical $3 ceiling logged for October.
“Given the trend … we anticipate that drivers may regularly see higher toll rates during peak periods in the future, as people are willing to pay a higher rate,” said Ethan Bergerson, a spokesman for the state tolling division.
That fits the larger picture.
Experience in our own state and elsewhere shows tolls will continue to go up, testing that $10 ceiling enough times until it is raised even higher.
It’s the principle of toll lanes at work on itself.
Tolls go up over a single morning commute — starting at $0.75 at 5 a.m. and reaching $5 by 7 a.m. — as well as over months and years as more people start to see toll lanes as a viable option.
In Atlanta, the maximum toll paid has gradually increased since express lanes opened on 16 miles of I-85 in 2011. Tolls there recently hit a new record at $12.
On Los Angeles County’s I-110, it isn’t unusual for the toll lanes to be packed with folks paying more than $15 to travel the 11-mile route.
Opinion writers for a Florida newspaper say forget “Lexus lanes”; the express lanes on I-95 might as well be “Maserati Lanes” with the maximum $10.50 toll charged so often.
Closer to home, the Highway 167 high-occupancy toll lanes south of Renton see low average tolls — just $1.25 overall in 2014. But those lanes, too, hit their $9 ceiling within a month of opening in 2008, and have hit the maximum toll more frequently since the state in 2012 made it easier for drivers to access the lanes.
A higher toll does not mean faster speeds within the toll lane.
We can look at I-405 to see that.
One month into tolling, express lane drivers paid an average $1.60 toll during the evening commute to save 17 minutes of travel time, about 9 cents a minute.
Two months in, the rate was up to 15 cents a minute, with a higher toll ($2.20) to save less time (15 minutes).
On that first $10 morning last week, drivers in the lanes were saving 16 minutes — only a minute above the average — for 63 cents a minute.
Up to a point, research shows that the higher the toll, the more willing people are to pay because of the perceived benefit.
It’s like a $50 T-shirt at Nordstrom, or a $5 T-shirt at Value Village of the same brand with last year’s print. They’re both T-shirts. But only one has a certain panache.
Jeff Yirak, of Snohomish, understands the math.
“If the (express toll lanes) were moving at 60 mph and the general lanes were crawling, I’d probably be willing to pay $10 per day,” Yirak said. As it is, “there’s little point in paying $7, $8, or $10 to go slow.”
On normal days, though, he and his carpool buddy split the cost of tolls to get home in the same amount of time they did before in the HOV lanes. They’ve paid as much as $6.25.
In the bigger picture, Yirak notes he’s paying to go slower.
Before tolling, it took he and his carpool buddy 30 minutes to get to work. It now takes 40 minutes.
“When I think about paying $50 a week to get to and from work in more time than the trip was taking three months ago, I get a little upset,” Yirak said. “But I suppose traffic is a fact of life. Until I’m willing to move my family and my business away from Snohomish County — or all of western Washington, practically speaking — I just have to deal with it.”
And for a growing number of drivers, traffic is so bad it’s worth paying to beat even a fraction of it.
Dorothy Heiret, of Bothell, drives the northbound toll lanes daily from work in Bellevue. She usually enters early enough to pay the lowest toll, 75 cents, but she’d likely pay up to $2. The toll lanes get her home an extra 5 to 10 minutes early.
“I know 5-10 minutes doesn’t sound like much, but when you add that to the 15 minutes of attitude adjustment that would have been required after sitting in traffic, it all adds up,” Heiret said.
Katelyn Reilly, of Kirkland, also travels north in the toll lanes to visit her parents in Mill Creek. So far she hasn’t paid any more than $1.50, but might pay up to $6. “I don’t mind paying a couple bucks to not have to deal with the stop-and-go of rush hour traffic,” she said.
Cary Granger, of Clearview, travels to Bellevue most days, typically when traffic is light. “But the few times that I was in a hurry, and the traffic was bad, I used the toll lanes,” he said.
The highest he’s paid is $2.75. How high would he go?
“What I would be willing to pay to use the toll lanes is all dependent on how it will benefit me as to when I get to my destination,” Granger said. “‘Time is money.’”
Time is money. Soon enough, it may be priceless.
Have a question? Email me at streetsmarts@heraldnet.com. Please include your first and last name and city of residence. Look for updates on our Street Smarts blog at www.heraldnet.com/streetsmarts.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
