405 Freeway express lanes almost ready
The 405 Freeway is known as the busiest in the country.
Specifically, Orange County Transportation Authority CEO Darrell Johnson notes, the stretch where the 405, 605 and 22 come together at the northern edge of Orange County is the busiest section of freeway in America, carrying nearly 400,000 vehicles per day.
Those drivers will soon have a time-saving option, as the new 405 Express Lanes are scheduled to open on Dec. 1.
“Doing a project like this under that extreme amount of volume, we think obviously it’s hard, but there’s also a lot of benefit to have those 400,000 people a day have a different option to go through there,” Johnson said.
The 405 Express Lanes, operated by OCTA, are the finishing touches on the $2.1-billion I-405 Improvement Project that started construction in early 2018. The project has also replaced and improved 18 bridges, while adding new bike lanes and sidewalks.
But the freeway itself is set to get wider in a matter of weeks, when the 16-mile stretch of express lanes is opened to the public between the 605 interchange to the north and State Route 73 to the south. The new express lane will combine with the existing high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane to create two express lanes in each direction.
A new general lane in each direction has also been added on the 405 between the 605 and Euclid Avenue, as part of the improvement project.
Before it opens, the express lanes system will undergo testing, OCTA communications manager Joel Zlotnik said. To that end, the carpool lanes along the 405 in both directions will close at night on Wednesday, Nov. 1, including the connector lanes between the 22 and the 405 and the 605 and 405.
“We take very, very seriously the opportunity and the responsibility we have to invest taxpayer dollars in the Orange County transportation system,” Johnson said during a media tour of the project on Thursday. “We have made a lot of investments since the early ’90s, but this by far is our largest single investment in any corridor of any type in our county’s history.”
OCTA also operates the 91 Express Lanes, which it purchased for more than $200 million in 2003.
The 405 Express Lanes will be monitored from an OCTA traffic operations center in Santa Ana, which will be staffed 24/7.
All toll road drivers will be required to have a FasTrak transponder, and a FasTrak Flex transponder — which can be switched depending on the number of occupants — is needed for carpool riders.
As for cost, three-plus person carpools and drivers with veteran or disabled person license plates always ride free. Two-person carpools are charged during peak hours and free during non-peak hours, and solo drivers will always pay a toll. Clean air vehicles with the transponder receive a 15% discount.
The tolls will go toward the $629-million federal loan that OCTA received for construction of the express lanes, with Measure M also funding the freeway improvements.
“Tolls are set and they vary by hour, day of the week and direction of traffic,” Zlotnik said. “We monitor them constantly. Over the initial period of opening, we can adjust them, sort of on the fly. Then moving forward, they’ll get adjusted quarterly.”
Some local residents are anxiously awaiting the toll roads. Diana Blatz, who lives in Newport Beach, expects them to significantly cut her drive time to see her daughter in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
“It takes 1½ hours when it should technically take no more than 45 [minutes],” Blatz said of the 40-mile trip. “This will alleviate some of this and I am willing to pay. However, it would suck for regular commuters to have to pay that every day.”
Johnson said drivers typically use the toll roads one to three days per week.
Leah Garland makes the unenviable commute from Los Angeles to Irvine and said she is not a fan of the new toll roads. She compared the situation to the airline industry, where companies are charging for things like checked bags that used to be free.
“When are we going to stop squeezing the less affluent?” Garland said. “Everyone’s trying to get by in life, and you’re going to say here’s another thing that’s more difficult for people without money? … I think it’s helpful to have a carpool lane, so that you have fewer cars on the road. If people have an electric car, etc., it’s promoting something that we all want to have happen and it’s kind to our environment.”
Teri Kurzen, who lives in Costa Mesa, has similar views.
“So sick and tired of being taxed and tolled everywhere we go,” she said. “HOV lanes help alleviate traffic … toll roads make it worse because not everybody can afford to pay for access.”
Johnson said he believes the new lanes are affordable; the maximum toll rate for the entire stretch during peak conditions is $9.95. He added that anyone who was previously in a general lane who chooses to use an express lane has now freed up a spot in a general lane.
“There’s benefit even for people that don’t take the toll lane,” he said. “When those two things are put together, the overall highway corridor is operating at a much more efficient level.”
Officials expect traffic along the 405 corridor to grow approximately 35% by 2040.
Huntington Beach resident Sydnie Thomas holds a slightly optimistic view, though she also bemoaned the loss of the carpool lane.
“I’m happy that they are being proactive with our traffic solution,” Thomas said. “I will definitely use the toll roads.”
Johnson said the 405 Express Lanes have been a long time coming, with the first studies being done in 2004. He added that the 91 Express Lanes have provided a good model in the two decades they’ve been operated by OCTA.
“We’ve owned and operated them through the great recession, we’ve owned and operated through a global pandemic,” he said. “We have a really good sense of how traffic responds through all the economic cycles, through economic growth, downturns, and how you can manage a freeway that has 350,000 cars a day and get more performance and efficiency out of the same footprint of a freeway.”
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