Despite a lackluster launch a month ago and a barrage of complaints ever since, the state issued its 100,000th Peach Pass to motorists seeking to escape gridlock in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties by using optional toll lanes on I-85.
The State Road and Tollway Authority on Thursday also said the weekly usage of the high-occupancy toll, or HOT, lanes tripled within the first month.
“Reaching this milestone is consistent with the steady demand for Peach Passes we’ve seen for the past several months,” State Road and Tollway Authority Executive Director Gena Evans said in a statement.
The rise in the number of Peach Passes also helps counter critics who have complained that the lanes are too costly and too confusing to use. Opponents have circulated petitions, handed out bumper stickers and lambasted state highway officials at hearings over the restricted HOT lanes.
Several emails to the AJC suggested that the authority was replacing Cruise Cards used for Georgia 400 with the new Peach Pass as a way of padding the numbers.
Authority spokeswoman Malika Wilkins, however, said that is not the case.
"Yes, this is a true representation of the number of new Peach Passes issued," Wilkins told the AJC on Thursday.
"We had 293,356 Cruise Cards in circulations prior to our back office system [going] live and before official registration opened for Peach Pass in June of this year," Wilkins said. "We’ve issued 101,861 Peach Passes since June of this year."
She said there were some customers who wanted to replace their Cruise Card with a Peach Pass "but we have not tracked that number because the number of replacements has been extremely insignificant."
Wilkins said the Cruise Card sticker also works on the I-85 express lanes "so there was not huge demand to switch these out."
The spokeswoman also said there had been a steady increase in HOT lane usage from about 3,200 trips on the first Monday’s commute on Oct. 3 to reaching over 10,000 trips in its fourth week last week, excluding weekends.
From Old Peachtree Road in Gwinnett to Chamblee Tucker Road in DeKalb, commuters, even drivers riding alone, can enter the 15.5 miles of HOT lanes to leave traffic jams on the rest of the highway. A Peach Pass sticker is applied to the windshield of a vehicle and tolls are electronically applied.
Solo drivers and two-person car pools have to pay to use the toll lanes; car pools of three people or more, motorcycles, emergency vehicles, mass transit and vehicles with alternative fuel licenses use the lanes for free. But all vehicles must have the Peach Pass sticker to avoid being fined.
The tolls range from 10 cents a mile to 90 cents a mile, rising with congestion. The State Road and Tollway Authority can go over 90 cents a mile in special cases.
A violation of the lane can bring a $25 fine by the authority and a police fine of up to $150 from troopers who are patrolling the lanes. The fines are mailed to the driver.
Less than a week after the lanes opened in early October, Gov. Nathan Deal announced plans to slash tolls to boost usage. The maximum toll for driving the entire 15.5 miles was dropped to $3.05 from $5.50.
The first 300,000 Peach Passes are being issued at no charge.
Preliminary work is under way for optional toll lanes on I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties; and on I-75 through Henry County, scheduled to open by 2016. A metrowide network is planned.
Peach Passes can be acquired from the website peachpass.com.
- AJC staff reports contributed to this article
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