SUNOL GRADE -- As his car rounds the bend, Paul McAlinden's hands tighten on the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. Up ahead, the three right-hand lanes on southbound Interstate 680 just before the Sunol Grade are packed with traffic, while the express lane on the far left is nearly empty.

"They told us the toll lane would relieve congestion," McAlinden says as he jockeys his dark blue Honda CRV through a pocket of bad congestion, which gives way to a smooth-flowing stretch followed by another backup. "But it's worse than it was before. Just look at it."

Indeed, the express lane does not seem to be substantially reducing travel times, according to information from Caltrans.

Drivers in the express lane between 6 and 9 a.m. had an average travel time of 11 minutes in February. Drivers on the same 14-mile stretch who used the other three lanes had an average trip time of 12 minutes between 6 and 9 a.m.

Ten years in the making, costing about $37.6 million for lane configuring and electronic equipment, the I-680 express lane allows solo drivers to pay from 30 cents to $7.50, depending on congestion, to use the carpool lane. The toll is automatically charged to drivers' FasTrak accounts.

Caltrans officials said the lane -- the first combined carpool and toll lane in Northern California -- would decrease congestion and bring more money to the state. But those who drive the stretch say the lane has made their commutes worse.


"The lane was a waste of $37.6 million," said Todd Gaches, who has been commuting from his home in Tracy to San Jose on I-680 for 11 years. "The lane was supposed to alleviate traffic. Now it's back to the way it was."

Though congestion increased when the lane opened Sept. 20, it is now pretty much at pre-toll lane levels, said David Hyams, a spokesman for the express lane project. Travel times on the non-toll lanes on the stretch from Interstate 580 to Highway 237 were a minute longer on average in November 2009 and January 2010, compared with November 2010 and January 2011, Hyams said.

Drivers say their commutes are closer to 10 to 15 minutes longer since the opening of the express lane, which stretches from Highway 84 near Sunol to Highway 237 in Milpitas.

"My former 45- to 50-minute commute is now rarely less than one hour," said McAlinden, an engineer who has been commuting from Livermore to his job at Broadcom in Sunnyvale for about a year and a half.

Before the express lane was added, the carpool lane hours were 6 to 9 a.m. Back then, McAlinden said, "I left the house at 8:45 a.m., hit I-680 at 9 a.m. and used the diamond lane. As a result, my total journey time was 45 to 50 minutes.

"Now, I have the choice of using the regular three lanes or paying around $6 to use the express lane," he continued. "Unless I pay, I take closer to one hour to get into the office."

McAlinden and his fellow commuters are also upset because they say the express lane is little-used. Commuters complain that there aren't enough exits in the 14-mile stretch, discouraging people from using it.
"I saw an article where the design engineer was quoted as saying the curves on the freeway made an optimum design not possible. How suboptimal is the design?" McAlinden said.

Caltrans officials said the lane was designed with safety and cost-effectiveness in mind. In order to put exits in the best possible locations, it would have been necessary to widen the road where there were overpasses, which would be prohibitively expensive.

"The exit points were determined by a combination of driving patterns and safety and geometry," Hyams said. "At the stretch in Fremont, there are curves and existing overpasses that precluded widening the road without redoing the whole overpass. There wasn't enough room for the merge lane except certain places and that helped determine where to put the exit points."

Further, officials said, the number of cars in the lane is increasing. When the lane opened, an average of 6,192 drivers used it per week. The number was up to 8,167 in January and dipped slightly, to 8,090, in February.

An expert in congestion management says a ramp-up period is standard.

"In just about all cases, with projects similar to I-680, there is a period of adjustment when people are getting familiar with the project," said Ginger Goodin, a research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute, a research institution that focuses on alleviating traffic congestion. "There are changes and adjustments that can take several months, even up to a year. There is an increase of usage over time."

And usage connects with revenue. Officials say about $300,000 in tolls has been collected in less than five months, which puts the lane on track to hit the $630,000 it was projected to make through June 30.

These positive signs mean little to Arnold Greenberg, who drives from San Ramon to San Jose. Greenberg said his commute used to take 45 minutes, but now it takes an hour.

"It is a good thing they have all those traffic cams watching traffic," Greenberg said of the cameras posted on the side of the roadway, "as they can focus in on me and other motorists going slower than before."

Gaches is even more bitter.

"It's a slap in the face," he said. "I pay $75 for every tank of gas and most of it goes up in smoke from idling. The toll lane discriminates against the have-nots. Who can afford to pay $7 to drive 14 miles? I drive a truck because I have to. I carry stuff from here to there. It's frustrating that I have to pay to drive in a lane I've already paid for."

Hyams countered that while all taxpayers paid for the original carpool lane nine years ago, they were unable to use it as solo drivers. All drivers now have the opportunity to use the lane, as long as they pay the toll.
Hyams said that regional transportation officials plan to eventually turn all the Bay Area's carpool lanes into express lanes, creating an 800-mile network of shared carpool-toll lanes.

"This kind of congestion management will be practiced more and more in the future," he said. "It makes better use of existing capacities because there's extra space in the carpool lane and it allows solo drivers to use it, relieving congestion everywhere."