The express lanes that you see on the 10 and 110 freeways may be staying for good.
On Thursday, the Metro Board of Directors voted to keep the lanes past their January 2015 expiration date citing time saving as one of the reasons.
“People point out often that ‘freeways mean free’,” said LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who is also a Metro board member. “But the reality is, we probably aren’t going to be building anymore freeways…and there’s an unbelievable amount of convenience that this is creating.”
With this vote, it also means users of the express lanes will pay a $1 monthly fee to help cover operational costs. This is expected to raise about $2.3 million, according to Metro.
The cost was $3 at the beginning for those who used the lanes three times or less each month, but that cost was dropped after customers complained about it.
Metro is now looking for approval from the state to make the extension official.
In November 2012, the FasTrak Express Lanes began as an experiment to charge single drivers various prices to use the carpool lanes.
Currently, it cost anywhere between 25 cents per mile all the way up to $1.40 per mile, depending on how crowded the lanes are.
Do you use the FasTrak Express Lanes?
