Interested in transit in this sometimes traffic-snarled hellscape of a city as we are, Curbed has kept a close eye on the drama of the high occupancy toll (HOT) express lanes that debuted on a section of I-85 north of Atlanta back in September. For those blissfully ignorant of the HOT lanes, they replaced the (free) HOV lanes, and offered those willing to pay for the privilege the option of jumping out of traffic and into a lane that theoretically would always be moving (cars with 3 or more folks and motorcycles still got to pretend they are free HOV lanes). Another theory behind these lanes was that they'd help alleviate congestion. Well, the opposite ended up being true, and people have been understandably pissed. Governor Deal jumped into the fray early and often, pushing to reduce the toll fees and on the U.S. government (who have authority over the lanes because D.O.T. funds aided in their construction) to ease the rule on 3 person carpools. Now Deal has proposed another fix- to reduce the tolls to 1 cent per mile during non-rush hour periods to open up the lanes when there's no reason to limit them. We've always loved completely-legal flips of the bird to authority figures when logical solutions to problems are inhibited by rules...huzzah!
· Gov. Deal would like to see I-85 toll dropped to 1 cent per mile, sometimes [11 Alive.com]
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