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11:13 p.m. • 2-10-12

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540 tolls not 'your grandfather's toll road'


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540 tolls not 'your grandfather's toll road'
540 tolls not 'your grandfather's toll road'

State transportation planners got their first look at how a new no-stop toll system could work when the next extension of N.C. Highway 540 opens.

"This is not your grandfather's toll road," Jim Eden, chief operating officer of the North Carolina Turnpike Authority, said Monday. "We're really trying to make this convenient for the customer." (View an animation of how the new toll roads would work.)

Last November, the Turnpike Authority unanimously voted to go to a cashless system that would give commuters several options to pay without them having to stop along the future Triangle Expressway.

Among those choices, at approximately 14 cents a mile, would be a vehicle transponder that infrared technology at the toll area detects. A computer system would then deduct money from a commuter's prepaid account.

Transponders would cost $8 to $20 and would be available online, at stores or area kiosks.

Another option, at about 28 cents a mile, would be for drivers to register their license plates and get billed accordingly when a video camera records their car's passage.

If a vehicle is not registered, motorists would receive a mailed invoice. The cost would be closer to 42 cents per mile.

"The camera systems, generally, we're used to delivering are 99.6 and higher of usable license plates of the vehicle, so you just don't miss it," said Scot Goettsch of Jai Inc., one of nine vendors demonstrating the latest toll technologies.

It's still not clear, however, when the tolls would be in place.

The General Assembly must approve gap funding for about $20 million a year. That could happen in the upcoming legislative session. If so, construction on the first stretch could begin this summer and could be open by December 2010.

If not, the project could be delayed for several more years because of environmental permits, the Turnpike Authority said. Construction costs would be an estimated $60 million more a year because of rising prices.

The cost of the entire Triangle Expressway is an estimated $1 billion. Additional funding would come from the tolls and would take about 40 years for the project to be paid off.

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I don't care about any of that. Geeker said that he was going to pull money out of the 540 deal if he didn't get his way and then he lied about it in the Ask the Geek anything section in WRAL.

The fact of the matter is that NCDOT keeps getting ripped off because all of the money the DMV nails us to the cross for with Registrations (and they think that if you drive a car your a cash cow), 30 cents per gallon gas tax, and other things they outrageously charge for goes right into Weasleys General fund to give to companies like Dell.

What a TYPICAL government RIP OFF!

I thought that the state tax was voted in years ago for the sole purpose of road construction. And was supposed to only be temporary, at least that is how they talked the constituents into to voting for it. It appears the political crooks (aka big fat liars) are at it again.

www.notollson540.org

Found this site while searching for info on it. Has a link to all email addresses for our state legislators and senators to send your thoughts about the subject.

Also online petition.

Great job!!!! Together we can let our "public servants" (choke choke) know how we feel!!!

Looks like according to this, if a car from out of town or one that doesn't have a tracking device will get an invoice. So more government workers to print out and send invoices, if a car only travels 2 miles on the road, we are sending them an invoice for $.28? Government hard at work...yet again! Yahoooo! Dang we are smart here in NC aren't we????

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