If you have ever sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a Twin Cities freeway and watched a stream of cars breeze past in the express lane, you may have suspected something was off. Well, you were right. New data from the Minnesota Department of Transportation confirms what many commuters have quietly wondered: a shocking share of drivers are cruising through E-ZPass lanes without any intention of paying — and the numbers have gotten significantly worse in recent years.
Between October and December of 2025, MnDOT recorded a systemwide violation rate of 46% across the metro’s E-ZPass express lanes. That means nearly one in two vehicles using those lanes had no valid transponder and was not carpooling, the two things that make using the lane legal during peak hours. It is a staggering figure for a system that was designed to reward compliant drivers with a faster, less congested commute.
The situation on Interstate 35W is particularly eye-opening. During evening rush hour at the Lake Street entrance heading into downtown Minneapolis, MnDOT found that the violation rate climbed to nearly 65%. That is not a fringe problem — that is the majority of drivers in that corridor during one of the busiest travel windows of the day essentially ignoring the rules entirely. For anyone who has paid for a transponder and sat behind someone who has not, that statistic stings…