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Photo by John RiggMetro's new HOT lanes along the Hwy. 290 corridor are slated to open May 20.
On May 20, the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County plans to implement high occupancy toll lanes down the center of Hwy. 290 to help facilitate traffic flow and minimize congestion along the corridor. These lanes will be open to single occupancy vehicles with authorized toll tags for a small fee, but will remain free of charge to high occupancy vehicles. This will be Metro's fourth HOT lane project in Houston.
"We have already seen about a 20 percent increase in vehicles along the three previous HOV lanes that have been converted to HOT lanes," said Tom Lambert, interim president and CEO of Metro. "So we know that this mobility option can help reduce some of the congestion on the main lanes of Hwy. 290."
The existing HOV lane configuration on Hwy. 290 stretches about 13.5 miles and sees an average of 7,500 vehicle per day. That number is expected to increase to about 9,000 vehicles per day with the addition of the HOT lanes.
For solo drivers wishing to utilize the new HOT lanes, a Metro HOT Lanes Toll Tag, a Harris County EZ Tag, TxDOT's TxTAG or the Dallas NTTA Toll Tag will be required. Verification lanes have been installed, briefly expanding to two lanes and requiring motorists to declare single-occupancy status by moving to the lane marked "Toll Only." Once in this lane, motorists will be charged the correlating toll regardless of occupancy status.
