HOT lanes driven by pay?

"Lexus lanes."

It's a moniker some use to describe high-occupancy toll, or HOT, lanes in which single drivers can pay a toll to use a car pool lane.

The argument goes: If you charge to use the lanes, well-off drivers will be the chief beneficiaries because they can pay the toll while lower-income drivers may not be able to.

HOT lanes will be the subject of a four-year experiment with congestion pricing tolls on state Route 167 between Renton and Auburn starting later this month. The tolls are based on time of day or congestion, and are designed to raise money and get motorists to avoid peak-travel times.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who was in the Seattle area Friday, called the "Lexus lanes" label "an urban myth that isn't exactly true." She said congestion-based tolls benefit lower-income drivers more than some with higher incomes.

Lower-income people, she said, often must live in less-expensive housing farther from jobs and are more likely to be hourly wage-earners who will benefit more by saving commuting time.

Peters' daylong trip included visits to Microsoft and to a Kirkland traffic-data firm, INRIX Inc., to discuss transportation-information technology.

The Transportation Department has said that congestion-based tolls are the price the state must pay for a $138.7 million grant that will help finance construction of a new Evergreen Point Bridge.

While there's widespread support for a test of HOT lanes on Route 167, there's some controversy over using them on state Route 520 and the 520 Bridge, where tolls could reappear late next year as a condition of the grant.

State Rep. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, the deputy Republican leader in the House, said HOT lanes could work on 167 but, "I don't think this is a model for how we should be tolling the 520 Bridge.

"If it's simply to allow rich people to fly with the traffic, I have concerns about that," Ericksen said. "For every one more single mother getting to day care (after work), you're going to see more wealthy people with Lexuses who'll pay more to use the lane."

But citing the example of California state Route 91 in Orange County, Peters said that two-thirds of the drivers using it are considered lower income and that lower-income or hourly paid commuters often value saving time more than those with higher incomes.

"If they're on a time clock and they need to be at work at a certain time to clock in and do shift work or something like that, the ability to get there on time is more important to them," Peters said.

Why charge tolls starting in 2009 if the bridge isn't expected to be built and open until 2014? Peters didn't completely answer the question before having to leave for another stop.

Tyler Duvall, acting assistant U.S. secretary for transportation policy, said it's because "you've got a real bad congestion problem" on the bridge now and time-of-day tolls could relieve it. "We've got to spread the demand more efficiently."

About a quarter of the trips on the bridge are made by retired drivers who could avoid peak-hour drives, thus relieving some congestion, he said.

Peters said Washington state must still approve legislation establishing a tolling authority for the bridge and start charging the tolls by Sept. 30, 2009, in order to keep the $138.7 million grant. She said the federal government wants congestion pricing used for those tolls.

A bill passed in this year's legislative session says the state will use tolls to raise money and relieve congestion, but the measure did not impose tolls on the bridge. Separate legislation will be required for that.