THE DALLAS FREEWAY/HOV SYSTEM: YEAR 2015. A SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDED HOV IMPROVEMENTS. INTERIM REPORT

The Dallas Freeway/High-Occupancy Vehicle Lane System Planning Study is a joint project in cooperation with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), and the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). The intent of this effort is to assist in the development of an area-wide freeway/HOV system that recognizes implementation constraints (right-of-way and construction costs) and provides reasonable peak-hour operating conditions on all freeway facilities, while incorporating the long-range plans developed by TxDOT, DART, and NCTCOG. The proposed system is a set of recommendations to be considered and evaluated as part of the development of the NCTCOG Mobility 2010 Plan Update, the long-range transportation plan for the Dallas area. HOV facilities are a significant part of the recommended system in the Dallas System Planning Study, and their implementation is important to the successful operation of the Dallas area transportation system in the future. This report, therefore, focuses on the recommended HOV improvements resulting from the methodology. The recommended system in the Dallas System Planning Study was developed using a methodology that focuses on peak-hour passenger travel demand in the year 2015 (derived from the year 2010 24-hour volume assignment provided by NCTCOG) for the freeways in Dallas and surrounding counties. The goal of the Dallas System Planning Study has been to find the lowest-public-cost alternative in each corridor for a given volume of peak-hour person trips. Planning officials summed costs to the public, including construction, right-of-way, operating, and congestion costs for each alternative, and selected the least-public-cost alternative as optimum. This methodology uses an iterative process that balances money saved in construction against money lost in delay to find the optimum combination of mixed-flow, HOV, and express lanes necessary to move the demand. It also recognizes that some motorists will change their mode of travel when given the opportunity to avoid congestion, resulting in more transit and carpool use. (Rail passenger volumes were held constant as provided by NCTCOG).