No bill has been introduced in the VA legislature to extend the "sunset" to 2009 for vehicles with clean special fuel plates to use the I95 HOV lanes during restricted hours. If nothing is done, then hybrids will no longer be allowed on the lanes during restricted hours beginning 7/1/08. My rep, Dave Albo, says it is too late to introduce new bills for this session. Therefore, recommend all N VA I95 HOV hybrid users go on a massive mail and email campaign to the governor and the secretary of transportation to extend the "sunset" to 2009, same as in HB2132 last year. Initiating a benefit and then taking it away is bad policy. The DOV no longer issues the clean special fuel plates for I95 HOV lanes because there are too many hybrids on the lanes. They should let the hybrids disappear from the lanes by attrition.
Why don't you just carpool or take mass transit like some of us do in the DC area? Hybrids in the HOV lane was a terrible idea from the start. They just increase conjestion and we're back to square one. HOV lanes are intended to get cars off the road. Adding single passenger vehicles muddies that mission.
You Virginia Hybrid drivers are a bunch of whiny babies! We don't have the luxury of using HOV lanes in Maryland because we drive hybrids. If you want to use the HOV lanes, do it the right way! Get 2 more riders and commute with them. HOV means High Occupancy Vehicle. If you are riding single, you do not meet the requirements for that lane. You should count your blessings for the many hours saved over the past couple of years that this exception was made. By the way, even if you do have Virginia Clean Fuel plates, it does not mean that you are allowed to use the HOV lanes in Maryland with a single rider, as I see many drivers of the Prius from Virginia doing. You will get caught by the MSP and they will give you a $500 ticket. So ask yourself, "Is it worth it?" Probably not! Buy the Prius to save fuel and pollutants, not just so you can get to work 45 minutes earlier by using a lane that was intended to increase carpooling. If you insist on using the HOV lane after July 1st, hit the slug lines on your way in and grab two people who need a ride going your way. Or as another poster said, use mass transit. Good Luck!
I'm a Virginia hybrid driver and I don't use HOV lanes anywhere unless I happen to have the required number of people in the car. Last June I was up in Baltimore trying to find a parking space in a very full garage, and although there were spaces reserved for hybrids I didn't take one because I didn't have the required MD license plate. So please take a deep breath and stop with the name calling. There's already enough hostility in this world.
get a carpool going. the fact that you have had the exemption this long is pathetic. ok, maybe that is harsh. but there is no doubt, there are people who bought a Prius for that reason and no other. if that is what it took for them to realize how good the Prius really was, ok then, it was a good thing. but its time for that good thing to end.
Special HOV Privileges for Hybrids have always been a terrible idea. The sooner they are gone the better.
And I'm one of them. I did the carpool/vanpool thing on I-95/395 in Northern Virginia for 25 years. But in 2006, I decided to stop whining about the hybrids in the HOV lanes and join them instead. This totally legal use of the HOV lanes on my part will end when I retire at the end of this March. I don't know if the "hybrid exception" will be extended for another year. Having it extended would not add even one vehicle to the HOV lanes that can't get in right now, since they've stopped (as of July 1, 2006) issuing the plates needed to legally drive a hybrid in the HOV lanes during rush hour. However, there's another issue, and that's the upcoming conversion of HOV lanes to HOT lanes, where anyone regardless of the type of vehicle they are driving can use the carpool lanes if they are willing to pay a toll. The conversion to HOT lanes may have influenced the legislature to let the hybrid exception end. PS - My original motivation for getting a hybrid was the HOV lanes. My reason for buying a Prius was, well, love at first sight. I hope to never go back to a gas-only vehicle.
Although I'm not in NoVA, I do have the Clean Fuel plates that allow me to use the HOV lanes. I have never gotten the opportunity to do so. Every time I'm up in that part of the state, the lanes are flowing in the opposite direction. If "sunset" is extended, great. If it's not, great. I agree that it wasn't a good idea to start with, but I had my right to use the lanes. I never got the opportunity, so it doesn't really matter to me.
The short answer is "yes". For a more definitive answe, this is from High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Systems Vehicles registered for clean fuel license plates on or after July 1, 2006, will not be exempt from the HOV-3 requirement on the I-95/395 HOV lanes from 6 to 9 a.m. or from 3:30 to 6 p.m. However, they will be permitted to use all other HOV lanes in Virginia during HOV hours, including I-66 and the Dulles Toll Road in Northern Virginia.
I believe that the establishment and issueance of the Clean Fuel plates in Virginia enabling hybird as well as other alternative fuel vehicles to utilize the HOV lanes had its genesis based on the same tenet as establishing the HOV lanes in the first place and that was meeting the Clean Air Act standards for emissions. Again if I recall correctly, Virginia was at risk of losing at least some level of Federal funding due to its lack of progress on air quality clean up and the construction of the HOV lanes was primarily driven by that issue. Relieving conjestion was definitely an 'intended consequence' but it really was secondary. Encouraging ownership of PRI, PRII, HCH, HInsight, HyHy, LexusHy, EscapeHy, LNGCrownVic, or any other extremely low emission vehicle by affording HOV access IMHO still does make good public policy sense. So, I would have to agree that extending the benefit. But individuals owning such vehicles can cut the already extremely low emissions/passenger mile in half or by two-thirds by doing as suggested by other posters -- start a carpool or, at least in the I-95 corridor, use the slugline option to pick-up a passenger or 2 (as needed in the I-95 HOV lanes) . jkp
I believe that the establishment and issueance of the Clean Fuel plates in Virginia enabling hybird as well as other alternative fuel vehicles to utilize the HOV lanes had its genesis based on the same tenet as establishing the HOV lanes in the first place and that was meeting the Clean Air Act standards for emissions. Again if I recall correctly, Virginia was at risk of losing at least some level of Federal funding due to its lack of progress on air quality clean up and the construction of the HOV lanes was primarily driven by that issue. Relieving conjestion was definitely an 'intended consequence' but it really was secondary. Encouraging ownership of PRI, PRII, HCH, HInsight, HyHy, LexusHy, EscapeHy, LNGCrownVic, or any other extremely low emission vehicle by affording HOV access IMHO still does make good public policy sense. So, I would have to agree that extending the benefit. But individuals owning such vehicles can cut the already extremely low emissions/passenger mile in half or by two-thirds by doing as suggested by other posters -- start a carpool or, at least in the I-95 corridor, use the slugline option to pick-up a passenger or 2 (as needed in the I-95 HOV lanes) . jkp
Delegate Timothy D. Hugo has introduced a bill (HB104) that will extend the exemption another year until July 2009. My understanding was that this was barely passed last year, so those interested in extending the exemption for hybrids using VA HOV lanes, you can contact your Delegate using this website: (legis.state.va.us). I love my Prius, which I looked at buying originally because of this policy AND for the environment. I have been so happy with it, and would like to continue using the Toll Road HOV lane and 66. As a junior member here, I just wanted to let those interested in continuing this policy know that there is a bill we can support. I would also like to thank all of you for all of the useful information I have found here over the last couple of years, expecially an answer to my chirping brake noise! Thanks!
You could see the writing on the wall a year and a half ago then? 6 months and the honeymoon is over.
And everyone knows that the Lexus LS600HL etc. and Silverado so called "hybrid" are all about saving the earth and therefore deserve to use the carpool lanes... riiiiiiiight... It was a poorly though-out idea to begin with, and would not be surprised or upset if it where repealed. But it is pretty silly that they created all this hype about hybrid cars only to regret it and do away with it...
I ran 95 in VA from 2002 to 2005, both as a slug and in my Prius. The problem is, my friend, and as you know, the HOV lanes were being CLOGGED with hybrids, as well as HOV-3 cars. There has to be more hybrids in Northern Virginia than any other part of the country per capita. As you know, the pace of home building hasn't stopped but 95 isn't getting any wider. There were afternoons when I could barely move at times. It was awful. Even carpooling wasn't enough, but frankly, if they got rid of the hybrid exemption, it would help things a lot. I'm so glad I escaped DC. I don't miss it a bit.
S Va Looks like the S Va hampton Roads area is up in Jul 08. Just got my re plate bill and it was up to 1 year around 100.00 from around 50.00. So the best bet is to get the one year option vice two and play by ear. What happens after the HOV benifits ends will DMV still change the extra 25+ for the SFP? lol
Well, at LEAST you're running solo in a PRIUS. Yes, the debate will go on regarding the 'rightness' of whether HOV's should be alowed 'SOLO'. Natural gas and EV's were doing it WAY before Prius owners did it. But VA ?!? Letting a 20mpg Lexus have stickers? Sorry, but VA takes the privelage to another level. I can see the debate for & against the Prius, the EV's and Natural Gas ... but just because it's a hybrid (getting mpg's in the 20's) ... that's weird. Must be their legislators are driving big ol' Lexus hybrids. Just because it's got cleaner smog. Wow. I hope they up their requirements. And when the plug in's finally get here, I hope all states up their HOV stickers to only include vehicles that get 75mpg or higher.
