A local politician is calling out the state’s transportation department for what he alleges is some shifty lane swapping, undermining drivers on I-405.

“At the end of the day, whatever we call it, there are now only three lanes for general purpose traffic,” said State Rep. Mark Harmsworth (R-Mill Creek).

Harmsworth, who represents the state’s 44th district, is among locals who believe that I-405 had four general purpose lanes before the Washington State Department of Transportation took away one, and converted it into a toll lane. That goes against federal road rules, he said &#8212 the state cannot convert a general purpose lane into a toll lane. He added that WSDOT was supposed to maintain four general purpose lanes, after the state passed a tax funding just that.

Related: What drivers in general purpose lanes are calling I-405’s express toll lanes

Harmsworth recently posted a graphic on Facebook comparing two photographs taken one year apart on I-405 near 85th Street. The photos are taken within 100 yards of each other in Kirkland, and show the difference between the number of general purpose lanes and express toll lanes.

“The earlier photograph has four lanes plus the HOV lane,” Harmsworth said. “If you look at the toll lanes that have been installed in the last few weeks, there are two HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes, and now there are only three general purpose lanes there. Obviously, a lane has been taken out.”

“That [general purpose] lane used to run from 85th [Street] to 116th [Street],” he said.

The state representative is at odds with WSDOT over the issue.

WSDOT weighs in

According to WSDOT, looks can be deceiving. WSDOT’s Tolling Director Craig Stone said that Harmsworth’s image does not accurately represent what the state agency did on I-405. In short, the far right lane in the picture was never considered a general purpose lane, Stone said, but has now been modified to be one.

WSDOT explains general purpose lane issues

“You have through lanes, like you would on any other interstate, and occasionally you have an auxiliary lane,” Stone said. “This is like a weaving or a merging lane between interchanges.”

That right lane in the photo, Stone said, was an auxiliary lane, not a general purpose lane. Auxiliary lanes are usually exit-only or entrance lanes. They leave the freeway and later, an entrance lane will merge back onto the freeway.

“What we’ve done is we’ve made those [auxiliary lanes] into continuous through lanes. We ended up keeping the three through lanes on I-405 and having two express toll lanes,” Stone said.

“We did have three of these auxiliary lanes out there; they have been re-purposed and that provides better operations for the whole corridor,” he said.

Stone said that WSDOT has found that traffic overall is moving faster on I-405 without the auxiliary lanes dropping in and out of the freeway, along with the new express toll lanes. Before the express toll lanes opened last month, Stone said, on much of I-405 north of Bellevue, there were three general purpose lanes and one HOV lane.

“You still have three through regular lanes, and two express toll lanes,” he said. “That gives you a total of five.

“The picture that was shown there is an area around Kirkland… and that fourth lane is that auxiliary lane,” Stone explained of Harmsworth’s photo.

Conflict and confusion

It seems that the confusion should end there, but WSDOT’s own documents seem to conflict with what was actually built.

“In 2003-05 we voted on a nickel package, all the material put out by WSDOT at the time was a part of the selling point of that package,” Harmsworth said. “We were going to have four general-purpose lanes in each direction on I-405.

“Now (the) DOT is claiming that was [an auxiliary lane], but all the material that was put out on the nickel package that we voted on … indicated it was a general purpose lane,” he added.

That nickel package was a 5-cent gas tax used to raise money for transportation projects. The Kirkland Nickel Project was among those funded by the tax and included widening I-405 through Kirkland, where Harmsworth took his photos.

According to a September 2006 WSDOT document called “I-405 Kirkland Nickel Project – Stage 1 Construction,” the agency used funds from the Nickel Tax to widen I-405 in order to add a general purpose lane on the right &#8212 a fourth general purpose lane.

“Once construction is completed, there will be four general purpose lanes and one HOV lane in each direction,” the 2006 WSDOT document states.

Other documents state the same plan.

There is no mention of an auxiliary lane. The document states that construction was underway and that within two months of its publication, I-405 should have four general purpose lanes.

“The reason [WSDOT now] is calling it an auxiliary lane is because the federal statute says they cannot remove general purpose lanes and convert them to HOT lanes…they have to add an additional lane to the freeway [to do that],” Harmsworth alleged.

“If they are calling it ‘auxiliary lanes,’ then that is different than what they were calling it back in 2005-07 when the nickel tax went through,” he said.

But Stone does not agree with the representative’s perspective. He maintains that the far right lanes on I-405 have always been auxiliary lanes, and never general purpose lanes. He recalls when WSDOT constructed the lane in question through Kirkland.

“One of the first projects we built was a lane between the 85th [street] interchange up to the 124th [street] interchange, and this is only one of those lanes with an ‘exit only,'” Stone said.

“After those lanes were built, we went through an environmental review, we looked at alternatives and concepts to take those auxiliary lanes, that functioned like auxiliary lanes … they weren’t continuous through lanes, we got better function by converting them to through lanes,” he said.

Stone maintains that WSDOT never built an additional general purpose lane, only an auxiliary lane.

“There’s only been three continuous through lanes from Bellevue up to Bothell, and there remains three continuous through lanes from Bellevue up through Bothell,” he said.

In 2011, Stone said that WSDOT was in the process of doing more improvements along I-405 that used the nickel tax funds, however, the Legislature passed another transportation package. The agency then began considering express toll lanes.

Stone said that, after studying the issue, better performance was found with express toll lanes. A new plan was put into play and the agency moved forward with express toll lanes for I-405.

He noted that there is also a master plan for I-405 that calls for two additional general purpose lanes.

“That long-term vision we have says, yes, there should be another general purpose lane all the way from Lynnwood to Bellevue that needs to be added, but that is something that will take a number of years to work through,” Stone said.