The original 11-mile reversible lane facility on I-95/395 in northern Virginia was among the first HOV lanes in the U.S. Originally designed as an exclusive busway, the facility was opened to carpools with four or more occupants in 1973 and to three-person carpools in 1989. In 1997, VDOT completed a 19-mile extension of the lanes to Route 234 in Prince William County. Since that time, local and intercity passenger and freight travel on I-95 and I-395 has continued to grow, precipitating ongoing efforts to ease traffic congestion in the corridor.
As described in greater detail below, VDOT received two P3 proposals under the commonwealth's Public-Private Transportation Act (PPTA) of 1995 to improve and expand the existing reversible lanes in the I-95/395 corridor in 2003 and 2004. An independent review panel evaluated the proposals and recommended that VDOT partner with 95 Express. In 2006, VDOT and 95 Express entered an interim agreement to design, build, finance, operate, and maintain new high occupancy toll lanes and began the environmental review process.
95 Express proposed widening the entire existing HOV facility on I-95/395 from two to three lanes and converting it to HOT operation. The lanes would also be extended by 25 miles southward to Spotsylvania County with new integrated Bus Rapid Transit service introduced throughout the length of the 56-mile corridor. In addition, 95 Express' financial projections were expected to be sufficient to fund a $250 million upfront payment to VDOT that could be applied toward the costs of operating transit service in the corridor, in addition to covering other project related costs.
In January 2009, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) granted environmental clearance for the northern section of the project covering improvements on the existing lanes. However, this action became the subject of a lawsuit filed by Arlington County, which claimed that the environmental analysis did not satisfy federal requirements. In February 2011, with the lawsuit pending, VDOT made the decision to abandon the final six miles of the project which would have brought the lanes through Alexandria and Arlington Counties to the 14th Street Bridge at the border of the District of Columbia. Instead VDOT opted to terminate the HOT lanes just inside the Capital Beltway. FHWA cleared a new environmental assessment for the re-scoped proposal in December 2011.
Construction on the project began in August 2012, and the entire 29-mile HOT lane facility opened to traffic in December 2014.