������ý

August 9, 2016 3:30 PM, EDT

Virginia Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne has proposed allowing Class 8 vehicles to use two high occupancy travel lanes on a 22-mile stretch of Interstate 66 starting just outside the Capital Beltway.

Layne said the idea’s gestation came in conversations with potential concessionaires for the HOT lanes that will be built via a public-private partnership and have a target opening date of 2021 or 2022.

“We’re faced with limited resources, as many states are,” Layne said in an exclusive interview with Transport Topics. “We’ve got to find a way to use those better while not sacrificing safety in any way.”

And as Layne noted, “Box trucks, some of which are only 12 feet shorter, are in the express lanes in Virginia now.”

Layne said that trucks likely will pay from $3 to $5 more than passenger cars to use the lanes, whose rates��fluctuate with the amount of traffic on the three adjacent free lanes. Trucks currently are charged $3 more than cars to use the Midtown and Downtown tunnels in Hampton Roads.

“I want to stress that this is a market decision,” said Layne, who first revealed his plan at a July 28 meeting of the Commonwealth Transportation Board in Richmond and is surprised that he has received little feedback. “It’s allowing goods and services to make the same choice that people do about whether they want to pay for the toll lanes.”

Virginia Trucking Association President Dale Bennett said his group tentatively supports Layne’s proposal.��

“As long as there’s a choice for our members, we like it,” said Bennett, whose association will be briefed on the proposal next month by Layne as part of the latter’s marketing campaign. “They’re going to have to price the lanes right for trucks to use them.”

According to Layne, three companies — including Transurban, which manages the 4-year-old HOT lanes on Virginia’s side of the Beltway — have expressed an interest in the I-66 project.

Layne expects to choose a partner in early fall with financial close, final design — including the number of entrances and exits — and the start of construction to follow before Gov. Terry McAuliffe leaves office in January. Virginia’s Legislature must be kept informed of the project’s progress but doesn’t have any role in approving it, Layne said.��

He added that there isn’t any chance of heavy trucks being allowed on the HOT lanes on I-66 inside the Beltway, which are due to open in 2017, because that portion of the highway is so narrow. Layne said that adding HOT lanes on I-95��outside the Beltway, which connects Virginia to the��Northeast corridor,��is a��possibility.