"Pricing becomes an incentive or disincentive for you to make a decision. Motorcyclists get to use the lane for free and don't need a transponder. Vehicles with two or more occupants can drive free on the 110 (so long as they have that transponder), but to take a toll-free trip on the 10 during peak hours, three or more people have to be in the vehicle. People driving alone are charged 25 cents per mile at minimum, and that price increases with demand. Metro offers discounts for its transponder for lower-income drivers and waives that monthly $1 fee for those who qualify for the program.ĭrivers are charged per mile according to Metro's "demand-based pricing," which varies based on real-time traffic conditions. To use those lanes legally, drivers purchase a transponder for about $40 (and also have to pay a $1/month maintainence fee), which is mounted on their windshield and tracked along their route. On the 405, that would mean charging certain drivers to use those planned toll lanes at certain times, just as the existing ExpressLanes on portions of the 10 and 110 freeways do now. "On the freeway system, what we need to do is better manage congestion." County," said Shahrzad Amiri, who runs Metro's Congestion Reduction Program. "We're not going to be able to build our way out of congestion in L.A. County is informed by a proven fact about congestion that has yet to be embraced by the public: adding more vehicle lanes is not a cure for traffic. Metro's work to add new toll lanes in L.A. now we're picking up the pieces and rolling." "They're just now coming online and everybody's like, 'Oh, my god, where did this project come from?' It was all discussed. There are directions on the back of the violation notice how to do that."Voters back in 2016 approved Measure M, which calls for the construction of all these projects," said Metro spokesman Rick Jager. So what do you do if you think you got one of these bogus violations in the mail? Metro said you should contest it. Metro said 1,700 drivers have contested Fastrak citations since the lanes went into operation one year ago and it has dismissed all 1,700 because it knows there are problems with its system. But they should be caught in the review process, and obviously, the review process needs some work." Rubin said he believes Metro mails out bogus violations "very frequently. The NBC4 I-Team spoke with Tom Rubin, a former top Metro official who is now a private consultant. I mean, that's a mistake and we would like to correct it." When asked how the camera can misread a plate when no plate is on the vehicle, McCune said, "I don't have an answer for you. Another citation he received had a picture of a Ford Explorer SUV.īut Metro couldn"t explain another citation Levine got, picturing a new BMW with no license plate at all. One citation addressed to Larry Levine, who drives a white Acura, had his license plate on it, but a picture of a Metro bus. "It could be mud on the plate, it could be dirty," McCune told NBC4. "Could be a misread of the plate," McCune said.įor example, McCune said the freeway cameras might mistakenly misread an "E" as an "F" or a "B" as an "8," and therefore send out a violation notice to the wrong driver. Metro official Kathleen McCune said the problem appears to be that the freeways cameras occasionally make mistakes. But some who receive the citations never drive on the lanes. Metro's traffic cameras snap images of every vehicle in the Fastrak lanes - those without the transponder receive citations in the mail. To use the lanes, drivers must pay $40 to get a transponder for their cars, which records tolls that are then charged to an account. There are FasTrak toll lanes on the 110, 10 and 91 freeways, that allow drivers to glide past heavy traffic. The Orange County Transit Authority says its also sent out incorrect violations. The I-Team found that Metro has mistakenly sent out perhaps thousands of incorrect violations, many to drivers who never use the toll lanes. There's obviously a problem somewhere in the system."Īfter Levine got his fourth bogus violation, he contacted the I-Team, which investigated. But Levine told NBC4 he has never even been on the 110 Freeway FasTrak lanes. Larry Levine, of Van Nuys, has received four violations in the mail from Metro, the transit authority, claiming he was driving on the 110 Freeway FasTrak toll lanes without paying the toll. Thousands of Southern Californians have received notices for traffic violations they did not commit, an NBC4 I-Team investigation has discovered.
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