My Take on Tolls

When I drove through Florida on the way to Orlando, I had to pay to ride on the worst maintained roads in that state. If that's what people want here, I'm not going to drive those roads and cause more wear and tear to my vehicle than it's already getting.

They've been working on the same stretch of I-85 in Durham since I retired from the military in 1997, and they're still not done. How about holding the contractors responsible for bad construction instead of expecting the already over-taxed taxpayer to foot the bill for their mistakes?

The proposed toll will be placed on a road that will be an "alternate" route. There are other free roads that can take you to the same places I-540 goes. If you don't want to pay the tolls, take the slow-moving back roads.

"Give us an inconvenience, and then try to soften the blow with some new gadget to make the inconvenience, not so inconvenient"

I think you're on the money. Use the lottery for example. The lottery is in place, a ton fo money spent (with little return) and a small amount is set aside for gambling addicts.

Give us a brand new road, built with our tax money, then toll it and collect more tax money.

Yep, I think you have figured out the NC government mentality!

I agree, but if we are realistic, the North Carolina Treasury does not have enough money to repair these roads and build new ones. As usually, we are double-taxed, they just call it something else. Also, same goes for Gas prices, now that everyone has learned to deal with the high prices, the price will never again fall below $ 2/gallon.

Don't like tolls? Ask for a gas tax increase? Don't like that? Then you are just SOL.

Interesting thing with gas taxes: Only a small part is variable, so as inflation has boosted the cost of petroleum products (sorta instrumental in road construction), the state has LESS real money to spend than it did 10 years ago. Sales and income taxes are a percentage basis, of course, so anything funded by those sources has also seen a commensurate rise in funding. Not so for roads.

Fun fact: Total inflation has averaged between 2 and 3 % for the better part of a decade. Construction inflation for road construction has average 15 PERCENT for 6 years now while gas tax revenues have stagnated. You do the math.

Nothing is free.

Please don't bring out the "highest gas tax in the southeast" saw. Fact: We don't pay for roads on a local basis via prop taxes or specific assessment as do almost all other states. When looking at total taxes, NCs are in line.

I was born and raised in NC. I just recently moved to SW Florida. I have to choose to drive a toll road to and from work every day. To begin with, I didn't like it. I thought it was a pain and costly. Well, after being here a few months now, it just isn't that bad. People in Florida do not have to pay state income tax. So, the fact that I choose to pay a toll is fine by me. I choose to pay the toll to travel this road. I could not choose to pay state income tax in NC. The toll program in Florida works. The roads in Florida are so much better than the roads in NC. We used to joke that the welcome signs to NC should say Welcome to Road Construction. It seems that no matter what road you are on, there is some type of construction. There again, this is not the case in Florida.The NC govt seems to double tax more than the FL govt. I think people in NC are taxed enough and should not have to pay any extra taxes/tolls. Do away with the state income tax & put up toll roads.

TheCommentor - You make some good points about the gas tax. It's a per-gallon tax, not a percentage of sale. So gallons sold would have to increase at the inflation rate for revenues to keep pace, otherwise the state falls behind. In the news today is that gasline demand is at peak levels. It would be interesting to know the stats on year-to-year gallons sold in NC.

It's not unreasonable to make I-540 a toll road. Alternate routes exist. What I object to is the state making only the southern quarter of the loop a toll road. I think the fairest solution is to make the entire loop a toll road. That way the entire RTP workforce - 'suits', managers and gray-collars - can share in the pain together.

The problem is most state DOT's do not maintain the secondary roads that you live on. In most states those roads are maintained by the county and /or municipalities. (Go check out some of those back roads in Virginia, they are nothing short of a paved paths. It takes money to upkeep all these roads and no one wants to pay for it.

My biggest complaint with putting tolls on any already existing roads is that the approach is a bit like that of drug dealers: first sample is always free. If a road is planned as a toll and put in a such from the start, and alternate routes exist, that's fine. Converting pre-existing roads to tolls smacks of bait-and-switch.

Ready2Taxi-"What I object to is the state making only the southern quarter of the loop a toll road" The existing stretches of I-540 were designed and built under totally different circumstances than we face today. As TheCommentor stated, raw material and construction costs for transportation projects has far exceeded inflation and expectation over the past five years. NCDOT has been above board in stating that, given these increases and the expected inflow to NCDOT from state and federal funds, the southern legs of the loop would not be able to be traditionally financed for the next 10 to 20 years. Project timelines could be shortened with non-traditional financing, hence the push for toll roads.

We, the consumer, are not willing to wait 20 years, so we’ve got to be willing to pay the price in some form or fashion to get the work accomplished.

Another tactic would be to lobby the state to change the apportionment of state and federal funds to favor counties with high growth

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