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As work steamrolls along on the massive Intercounty Connector project, focus has shifted from the ongoing land clearing, digging and paving to proposed tolls for the highway that will bridge Prince George's County and northern Montgomery County.

It's the cost of those tolls that has some critics already dubbing the roadway "Lexus Lanes." The tolls will be subject of public hearings scheduled in the two counties later this month.

The tolls are proposed for a 17.5-mile stretch of the eventual 18.8-mile highway. As it stands now, cars would be charged 25 cents to 35 cents per mile during peak morning and evening rush hours, making the tolls the highest in the Washington, D.C., region. A round-trip commute covering the full 35 miles could cost an automobile driver $12.25 a day, or more than $3,000 a year.

Officials say the tolls are to help recoup part of the cost of the $2.4 billion project.

All of the tolls would be collected electronically using an E-Z Pass, and owners of vehicles without the E-Z Pass account would be mailed a toll bill including a $3 service fee.

But for motorists who crawl along Interstate 95 and the Capital Beltway or traverse traffic-congested back roads to get from the Laurel area to Gaithersburg, other parts of northern Montgomery County or Frederick County, the ease of the toll collection is of little consolation.

"The major challenge is to balance raising the revenues with the political heat," said Peter Samuel, editor and owner of trade publication TollRoads

news.com.

Set the rates too high and few people will travel the ICC, but set them too low and not only will the ICC also become clogged with traffic, but the state will not be able to generate enough revenue to pay back the $1.23 billion in revenue bonds borrowed to help pay for the project, Samuel said.

"It really is a balancing act," said Kelly L. Melhem, deputy director of communications for the Maryland Transportation Authority, which will set and collect the tolls.

But Michael Replogle, former transportation director for the Environmental Defense Fund and a leading critic of the ICC, said opponents had predicted the state would have to charge high tolls to pay for the project. He and other critics said the road never should have been built.

The ICC originally was proposed in the 1960s as a way to improve the flow of traffic between Montgomery and Prince George's counties. A few years ago, then-governor Robert L. Ehrlich (R) campaigned on building the ICC and held the groundbreaking in October 2006. The ICC construction also was supported by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), who defeated Ehrlich the next month. Construction began in November 2007.

Even with the high tolls, the ICC will be heavily subsidized at the cost of other transportation projects around the state, Replogle said.

"So many of the things that the opponents of the Intercounty Connector said would happen are coming true," he said.

The ICC will benefit the affluent at the cost of transit services that would be used by moderate- and lower-income residents, Replogle said.

Montgomery County Council President Philip M. Andrews (D-Dist. 2) of Gaithersburg said he held a press conference four years ago denouncing the proposed tolls, which at the time would have been $7 a day for a round trip.

Andrews is hoping the County Council will take a position opposing the proposed tolls and issue a joint statement during the public comment period.

"The tolls proposed by the Maryland Transportation Authority would assure not only that the ICC is underused, but that they would price many people off the road and deter many of us from using the highway, undermining the goal of taking traffic off the Beltway," Andrews said. "It's completely a high-toll highway all the time. It just varies from high to very high."

"The term ‘Lexus Lanes' is applied to a lot of toll roads across the country," Samuel said. "I think it is b—— myself. The lower-income and moderate-income people and others, they drive vans, and I'm sure they'll drive it."

A mix of traffic uses certain express lanes that charge $1 a mile during rush hour and 40 cents per mile at other times in California, Samuel said.

"There's a lot of moderate-income people to whom saving time and getting home quicker is valuable, and they'll spend their money on it as they do other things," Samuel said.

"The idea it's just for the rich is just wrong," he said. "It doesn't comport with our experience on these kinds of roads. A lot of the rich have more discretion about the time when they travel, so they don't have to take the toll roads to avoid traffic. The roads are used by regular folks. So I think that's a bit of nonsense myself."

A better point of argument, Samuel said, is whether the state needed to spend $2.4 billion on an 18.8-mile stretch of roadway. Overall, though, he said it is a good plan.

More toll roads are the way of the future, Samuel said.

"People would love to have things for free, but if you ask them if they'd rather have a toll or a gas tax, overwhelmingly they prefer a toll," he said.

At one point, the state had planned to do "dynamic pricing," using sensors to determine traffic flow and raising the toll as more cars traveled at a given time, Samuel said.

Such systems are used in other parts of the country as a way to keep the toll road moving more freely on days when motorists might seek to use it to avoid traffic jams on other roadways, he said. The systems use sign boards to notify motorists of the current toll rate before they enter the roadway.

But officials dismissed dynamic pricing over concerns that changing rates would confuse motorists, Melhem said.

More expensive

than Dulles Toll Road

The ICC's proposed toll rates are higher than the 9 cents per mile on the Dulles Toll Road and 10 cents per mile on I-95 north of Baltimore, but those roads are older and do not face the same revenue pressures from bondholders looking for payback on their investment.

By comparison, other toll roads, particularly the new ones, across the country charge comparable or even higher rates, Melhem said, such as Interstate 15 in California, which charges 64 cents per mile, I-95 in Delaware, which charges 35 cents per mile, and the Dulles Greenway in Virginia, which charges 32 cents per mile.

A study estimated that the average trip on the ICC would be about 6 miles, and fewer than 5 percent of users would travel the entire length, Melhem said.

So far, the state has received few public comments as part of the input process, she said.

But whether that means few people are interested in the proposed toll rates or they are waiting for the public hearings to speak their minds is hard to predict, Melhem said.

The ICC is intended to relieve congestion, and tolls and traffic patterns will be reviewed quarterly to see if it is helping, she said.

The proposed toll ranges are based on a traffic and revenue study conducted this year that took into account "current economic conditions," Maryland Transportation Authority Executive Secretary Ronald L. Freeland said in an e-mail. Even those who do not travel on the ICC will benefit from having other roads relieved of some congestion, he added.

The MTA will vote on the toll structure Dec. 17 after reviewing the public comments.

The first segment of the ICC, between Interstate 370 and Georgia Avenue, is expected to open next autumn, with the full road to open by spring 2012.

The state is holding public information meetings Monday at High Point High School in Beltsville and Wednesday at John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring.

Those will be followed by public hearings Oct. 28 at High Point High School and Oct. 29 at Shady Grove Middle School in Gaithersburg. The meetings are scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m.

The public can comment at the public hearings or can submit comments in writing by 5 p.m. Nov. 23, either online at www.iccproject.com or mailing them to the ICC Project Office, Attn: ICC Tolls, 11710 Beltsville Drive, Suite 200, Beltsville, MD 20705.