Slugs expected to come out of the woodwork when I-66 E-ZPass Lanes open

On the busy lanes of Interstate 66, the unique Northern Virginia institution of “Slugging” has never caught on.

While popular on Interstate 95 since the 1970’s as a fast and free way for commuters in vehicles of three or more occupants to get to their jobs Arlington and Washington, D.C., commuters on I-66 have never adopted the practice.

Why? Because Interstate 95 from Prince William County to the Pentagon had long had a separate facility housing two reversible express lanes that carry commuters north in the morning and south in the evening. Concrete barriers placed alongside these lanes prevent drivers from the main travel lanes from weaving in and out of the express lanes and gumming up the flow of traffic in the express lanes.

Those express lanes in 2014 were converted to E-ZPass lanes, which now require all drivers to have an electronic E-ZPass or E-ZPass Flex transponder mounted to their windshield to use the lanes. The express lanes were also extended south from Prince William County to Garrisonville in Stafford County. 

Vehicles with three or more occupants can still use the lanes for free.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe earlier this month announced they are once again being extended south to Route 17 near Fredericksburg. 

What’s slugging? What’s a slug?

Slugging is a form of commuting where riders ride free and the drivers — many of whom have a reserved parking space at their work or choose to pay for parking — get to skip the congestion on the main travel lanes and get to work faster.

Slugging is a form of commuting where riders ride free and the drivers — many of whom have a reserved parking space at their work or choose to pay for parking — get to skip the congestion on the main travel lanes and get to work faster.

A slug is, as you might have guessed, is the carpooler that rides for free. Slugs park their cars each morning at a commuter lot and stand in “slug lines” — designated lines with people going to similar destinations, like the Pentagon or Downtown Washington. When the next car pulls up to the front of the line, two or three slugs get in and off they go.

No money is exchanged, and no iPhone or Android apps used to hail the ride like an Uber rideshare service.

Things are changing along the I-66 corridor, and that could lead to, for the first time, Slugging, being a viable, reliable option for commuting from places like Haymarket, Gainesville, and Manassas to Washington, D.C.

“Our vision for the corridor definitely includes carpooling as well as other forms of mass transit,” said Virginia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Michelle Holland. “We’re making investments in the corridor, and as a result of tolling, we’re going to be able to fund to more transit and multi-modal services that will provide for a more reliable trip.”

The investment is called “Transform 66,” a project that when complete, officials hope will deliver on its namesake. 

First changes take affect Summer 2017

Starting next summer on I-66 inside the Capital Beltway, drivers must have an E-ZPass Flex or E-ZPass to use the lanes from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., and from 3 to 7 p.m. Vehicles with occupants of two or more won’t be charged a toll.

Today, drivers on I-66 must already have two or more occupants inside their vehicles to use the highway on weekday mornings and afternoons. 

Outside the Capital Beltway on I-66, from I-495 to Route 15 in Haymarket, two new lanes will be constructed each direction. These lanes, like their counterparts on I-95. will be a separate facility. 

Hello, reliable lanes 

Concrete barriers will stop single drivers from gumming up the works and merging into the lanes, as they currently do on the single High Occupancy Vehicle lane on I-66 today. That constant weaving and merging slow the trip for commuters who play by the rules and have two or more occupants inside the car. 

Individual drivers may choose to pay a toll to use the new lanes, while vehicles with three or more occupants will ride free when the new lanes open by late 2020. 

Also, when the new lanes between the Capital Beltway and Haymarket open, the rules to use the lanes for free inside the Capital Beltway will change. Drivers will need three, not two, occupants inside their cars, and an E-ZPass Flex transponder to use the lanes for free. 

A total of 4,000 new commuter parking spaces is also being built along the corridor for slugs to park and ride as part of the project. The goal for state transportation officials is to deliver a game-changing project that will get commuters to and from work quicker and to provide more travel options in the long-congested corridor.

I-95 fears never materialized

There was fear in 2014, and the years leading up to the conversion of HOV-3 on I-95 lanes to E-ZPass Express Lanes on I-95, that more individual drivers would opt to pay a toll and not stop to pick up slugs. If more single drivers jumped into the express lanes, slugs feared that could slow things down, increase travel times, take away the “get there fast and free” incentive for slugging, and more slugs would then opt to drive instead of choosing to park and ride.

“Quite the opposite has happened, actually,” said David LeBlanc, who wrote a book about slugging called “Slugging: dyhamicThe Commuting Alternative For Washington DC” and runs the commuter friendly website Slug-lines.com. “We thought more slugs would choose to drive or hop a bus and instead, mostly because of the tolls, we’ve seen the number of slugs increase.”

LeBlanc said he expects to add the names of new Slug lines that form along I-66 in western Prince William County to his website. Applications on iPhones and Andriod could aide the formation of new Slug lines, and he’s thought about developing one.

“I’ve been approached by developers who’ve seen my website and want to develop an app, but the majority of them want to find a way to monetize slugging and that’s not what the ture nature of slugging is about,” said LeBlanc.

A new app called Sluglines.com, not to be confused with LeBlanc’s Slug-Lines.com, launched earlier this year. It pretty much does the same thing LeBlanc’s website does and lists the locations of Slug lines in Northern Virginia. 

The toll pricing on the I-95 E-ZPass Express Lanes is based on a dynamic on a pricing system. Toll prices are posted on overhead electronic signs on the highway, and increase or decrease based on the number vehicles currently using the express lanes — toll-paying cars, carpoolers, and commuter buses.

The more vehicles in the lanes, the higher the toll. Fewer cars, the toll rate decreases. Single drivers that enter the toll lanes are locked in at whatever price per mile is shown on the overhead sign.

Most toll prices range between $1.10 and $4. Some tolls can be as high as $22 during the afternoon rush hour, for drivers headed south to Stafford County.

The new E-ZPass Express Lanes that will “transform 66” will operate the same way.