The California State Route 91 (SR 91) Value-Priced Express Lane facility is a four-lane toll highway constructed in the median of an eight-lane urban freeway. The 16 km. long express facility has no intermediate access and permits no heavy vehicles. Tolls are time-dependent, reflecting demand, with electronic toll collection only (no cash)

The SR 91 Express Lanes were originally constructed and operated by a private company under a franchise agreement with the State. The project came about due to legislation (Calif. AB 680) passed in 1989 by the California Legislature in order to attract alternate funding sources to meet state transportation needs, gain private sector efficiencies, and reduce congestion.

An impact assessment study took place from mid-1994 (about a year before opening) through 1999 to measure reactions to variable toll pricing and to the other innovative features of the new facility. Measured impacts include: highway traffic changes; effects on corridor bus, rail and park & ride; effects on accidents and significant incidents; origin-destination (revealed preference) surveys; opinion surveys; emissions modeling; and behavioral choice modeling. It was found that Express Lane use strongly reflects hourly travel time savings, and peak flattening is only weakly responsive to tolls.

Driving comfort and safety are often cited to justify paying tolls when time savings are minimal. Income correlates positively with use frequency, being female, middle aged and highly educated also correlate with greater use. Nevertheless, many frequent users are low income, and many high income commuters are infrequent or non-users. Toll incentives were associated with a long-term increase in 3+ ridesharing on the facility, and HOV users appear generally more likely to use the Express Lanes. Benefit-cost analysis shows that large travel time savings lead to a strong positive surplus of benefits relative to costs, causing the Express Lanes to compare favorably to other corridor improvement options.

In spring 2002, following some controversy related to ownership and severe parallel freeway congestion, the public Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) agreed to purchase the 91 franchise for $207.5 million. State enabling legislation allowed the OCTA takeover to become final in January 2003. In Nov., 2002, voters also approved Measure A to provide nearly $1/2 billion in road improvements in the 91 corridor which had previously been blocked by the non-compete clause.

Despite its recent de-privatization, the SR 91 project was very successful on many dimensions. It was an innovative model that helped establish in the U.S. an open mind toward market-based road pricing. It also proved that public-private highway partnerships can be financially successful. In this author’s opinion, the Achilles’ heal of the private project turned out to be the non-compete clause included in the franchise agreement.

The SR 91 Express Lanes have shown that innovative road pricing can be economically attractive, win public approval, and influence travel behavior. Increasing travel options is a subtle yet powerful outcome from such projects. “One size fits all” in road pricing has failed. Increasing transportation choices through pricing has clearly succeeded, and should regularly be considered as a source of alternatives in future facility planning.