Could toll roads become a reality for San Bernardino County commuters?
The county is considering it, according to the San Bernardino Associated Governments website and the Press Enterprise in Riverside.
The agency is currently reviewing a project to improve traffic flow along a 25 to 35-mile section of Interstate 10. According to the project’s web page, The I-10 Corridor Project is studying the addition of managed lanes and other freeway improvements from about two miles west of the Los Angeles/San Bernardino County line in the City of Pomona to Ford Street in the City of Redlands.
Several options were being explored including the addition of toll lanes, also known as express lanes.
On Dec. 5, the Press Enterprise reported on an update given to SanBAG board during its regular meeting.
TO READ THE PRESS ENTERPRISE ENTIRE REPORT, CLICK HERE.
San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford, president of the San Bernardino Associated Governments board, said toll lanes are a tough sell to constituents who feel they shouldn’t have to pay to use freeways, the paper reported.
“I really feel caught between a rock and a hard place,” she told the board. “We need more capacity, but we have no funding to add capacity unless we consider such options.”
If approved, these would be San Bernardino County’s first venture into toll lanes, the paper reported.
The project area is one of the most congested in San Bernardino County, SanBAG officials wrote on the project’s web page.
“It is heavily used for commuting, freight movement and vacationing travelers,” officials said. “Heavy congestion is experienced by motorists during the peak hours on both directions along the I-10 (greater delays on Fridays and holiday weekends) on a regular basis.”
Officials estimate that as many as 263,000 vehicles, including 27,000 trucks, travel daily on this stretch of freeway and traffic congestion is anticipated to worsen with the projected daily traffic increase of up to 340,000 vehicles by 2040.
"With the increase in future traffic, travel times will subsequently increase, hindering freight movement and commuter traffic through the corridor if no improvements are made to the corridor," according to the site.
