http://www.newsobserver.com/news/growth/traffic/story/1077668.html

A toll road known as the Triangle Expressway that will cost $1 billion dollars is going to be built and connect RTP to western Wake County. It'll be 18 miles in length. It should be open by 2011. Having made many trips to the Northeast, I must say that I fucking hate toll roads. It's just another ploy to jip the taxpayer out of money. You are already paying taxes that go to building and maintaining the road and now you've got the government charging you extra just to drive on the road. Plus it slows down traffic. Even if I have an EZPass with me I hate having to slow down to go past the sensor. I know we are getting a lot of people from the Northeast move down here to North Carolina, but that doesn't mean we have to do everything like them.

What do you all think of toll roads?

5/20/2008 10:14:37 AM

Toll roads can bite me.

5/20/2008 10:18:13 AM

Toll roads can bite me.

5/20/2008 10:19:03 AM

Hey guys ... it costs a ton of money to travel now... let effing make it cost more !!!

5/20/2008 10:24:15 AM

building a toll road that everyone is used to not using anyway is a great idea

most everyone will go around it, but you will see a few dumb fucks who get to work like 5 mins faster, at the cost of about $4 a day most likely

5/20/2008 10:25:21 AM

There is one near my house that is 20 miles long and is $6.00. There are probably 10 other ways to get anywhere the toll road goes in the same amount of time.

5/20/2008 10:27:44 AM

I think NC needs a constitutional amendment banning toll roads.

5/20/2008 10:30:09 AM

Doesn't really bother me, but I'm from the NE so I guess I'm used to them.

And you don't have to slow down at all for High-speed ez pass

[Edited on May 20, 2008 at 10:32 AM. Reason : +]

5/20/2008 10:30:17 AM

Quote :

"It's just another ploy to jip the taxpayer out of money. You are already paying taxes that go to building and maintaining the road and now you've got the government charging you extra just to drive on the road."

get informed, dude. The state has to pay for the road one way or another. there is no money allocated right now to even start construction until something like 2016, which is obviously way too late. The only way to get a jumpstart on construction and get it opened in a couple years is to make it a toll road.

Quote :

"Plus it slows down traffic. Even if I have an EZPass with me I hate having to slow down to go past the sensor."

did you even read the article? They're trying to avoid using EZPass and using something that reads license plates at full-speed instead.
An article I read a couple weeks ago said the tolls would be something like:
14 cents/mile if your plate is pre-registered and you have auto-draft set up
30 cents/mile if your registered and you want a bill sent to you
60 cents/mile if you're not registered and they have to find you and send a bill

If you live down in Holly Springs, for example, and commute to RTP and you pre-register, then ~$1 each way to work would be well worth having a fast expressway there

5/20/2008 10:34:30 AM

Quote :

""

Even if I have an EZPass with me I hate having to slow down to go past the sensor[quote]


I don't know what EZ Pass you have experience with, but in Chicago you can move at normal speed through the sensors.

5/20/2008 10:36:55 AM

what if you get that thingy that blurs out your plate

i know they can do it for red light cameras

could this be another way to fuck the system?

5/20/2008 10:41:13 AM

I think that myth was busted

5/20/2008 10:42:58 AM

I use the ezpass too in chicagoland (the thing that reads the sensor as you drive through) and I almost never have to slow down. then again you can only really go 55-60 on these highways

nice, sputter, didn't see that.

[Edited on May 20, 2008 at 10:51 AM. Reason : .]

5/20/2008 10:51:28 AM

Quote :

" The state has to pay for the road one way or another. there is no money allocated right now to even start construction until something like 2016, which is obviously way too late."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we a gas tax "donor state?" And didn't we just see an automatic increase in state gas taxes recently? The no money argument is BS.

The money's there, but it's being sent to washington or squandered... like paying millions for free advice.
http://wral.com/news/local/story/2908923/

Quote :

"Riddled by delayed and botched road projects and criticized for its inefficiency, the North Carolina Department of Transportation paid millions of dollars for a report last year that offered some recommendations it got at no cost nearly a year earlier."

5/20/2008 10:53:03 AM

^you're right, we should just do shit without researching it first

5/20/2008 10:55:56 AM

Quote :

"did you even read the article? They're trying to avoid using EZPass and using something that reads license plates at full-speed instead. An article I read a couple weeks ago said the tolls would be something like: 14 cents/mile if your plate is pre-registered and you have auto-draft set up 30 cents/mile if your registered and you want a bill sent to you 60 cents/mile if you're not registered and they have to find you and send a bill "

Not exactly, the way I understand it. You will have to carry a transponder to get the best toll rates. (Not sure what the rates are yet). The license plate readers will be a backup. The way it was listed in yesterday's article was:
You pay X toll if you register to use the road and carry a transponder.
You pay 2X toll if you register your plate but do not carry a transponder.
You pay 3X toll if you use the road without being registered. They will have to manually get your address from DMV info to mail you a bill.

5/20/2008 10:56:13 AM

Quote :

"most everyone will go around it, but you will see a few dumb fucks who get to work like 5 mins faster, at the cost of about $4 a day most likely"

you obviously have never had to drive daily on I-40, 440, HW-70, HW-1 or any of the backroads that people try to use to get to RTP or Cary. A straight, wide expressway serving several suburbs can cut of lots of commute time. So instead of stopping by your local starbucks to by your $3 coffee to drink while you're sitting in stop-and-go traffic on HW-1 for 45 minutes, just get straight on the expressway and you'll be there in 15 minutes and drink free coffee at work

5/20/2008 11:14:29 AM

FINALLY! toll roads FTW. Maybe now I won't feel like i'm driving on third world countries roads. At least on that particular highway.

5/20/2008 11:18:44 AM

^seriously, wtf?

Quote :

"Even if I have an EZPass with me I hate having to slow down to go past the sensor. I know we are getting a lot of people from the Northeast move down here to North Carolina, but that doesn't mean we have to do everything like them."

Since this will be a modern roadway I imagine they'll have high speed EZpass toll booths, if they have EZpass at all (based on the other comments). Signs for those state to go 55mph, but from my experience 70mph doesn't make a difference.

NC isn't doing toll roads to "copy the northeast". But guess what, as NC's population rises higher and higher toll roads will become a necessity so get used to it.

And of course i hate toll roads, who wouldn't?!

[Edited on May 20, 2008 at 11:23 AM. Reason : k]

5/20/2008 11:23:22 AM

^seriously wtf, what? I hope you aren't trying to disagree about road conditions and build quality. they're atrocious. Having a toll is not a bad thing especially with an EZ Pass

5/20/2008 11:30:36 AM

Why do you believe that tolls will somehow lead to better road maintenance?

This is the NC DOT we're talking about here.

5/20/2008 11:42:32 AM

Madman, the NCDOT Did do the research. DOT guys were flown in from three other states and ACEC (American Council of Engineering Companies) confirmed to the DOT a year prior AT NO COST TO THEM, that the roads were all effed up and needed changes.
But this past year, the DOT failed to listen and so spent crap tons of money getting other guys to do the exact same thing...and show the DOT the exact same results.

Meanwhile, the DOT returned $19 BILLION to the federal government because they couldn't jump-start the bridge projects for which the money was designated.

5/20/2008 11:44:39 AM

While I generally agree with RSXTypeS, in this case I'm not so sure. This road is being built through funding from the future tolls. I'm not sure I'll trust that the future revenue from the tolls will go into maintaining the road. Also, please tell me this road will be state owned and not privately owned.

And honestly, as far as road quality on interstates I don't see much difference in road quality between free and toll roads.

Not to mention this new 18 mile road sounds expensive compared to toll roads I'm used to.

[Edited on May 20, 2008 at 11:45 AM. Reason : k]

5/20/2008 11:44:49 AM

Quote :

"Why do you believe that tolls will somehow lead to better road maintenance? This is the NC DOT we're talking about here."

one can only hope that the tolls would actually serve their purpose....

^they have more issues up north due to snow. I know in Montreal they have 2 seasons. Winter/snow and construction season where they have to repair all the roads that the snow has damaged. They have terrible roads up there.

[Edited on May 20, 2008 at 11:53 AM. Reason : .]

5/20/2008 11:51:58 AM

Folks from up north will use this, and the state will see that use and think it would be a good idea to build more toll roads


fucking yankees

5/20/2008 2:03:46 PM

toll booths have nothing to do with the civil war, brah.

5/20/2008 2:17:22 PM

1 Billion for 18 miles of road? WTF. I bet it costs more by the end too.

5/20/2008 2:32:37 PM

Quote :

"So instead of stopping by your local starbucks to by your $3 coffee to drink while you're sitting in stop-and-go traffic on HW-1 for 45 minutes"

I'd be very happy if I didn't have to see middle america walking/driving around with Starbucks cups displayed like Prada bags. But I still hate toll roads. Oh and those prices are ridiculous. $.60/mile to pass through there as a one-time traveler (or 2x for return trip)?? ~$22 to use that road twice is f'ing ridiculous.

5/20/2008 2:33:34 PM

car and driver

Quote :

" Turning Asphalt into Salmon Runs How politicians conspire with highway owners to make you pay twice. February 2008 The topic of privately owned toll roads just won’t go away. So let’s take another look. Why would somebody buy a toll road? I explored that question in my November column. The answer: because the owner gets the money that motorists cough up in tolls. Today’s question: Why would a motorist cough up to drive on a toll road? That’s easy: to get somewhere he can’t go on a free road or, more likely, to get there with less agony. Now, let’s go back to the owner’s side. In order to harvest more cough-ups, what would it take to pile more agony in the paths of motorists who choose to avoid the toll road? I can think of a few dirty tricks. Hire a couple of freelancers to fake breakdowns during rush hour. Other days, they could lose mattresses off the backs of pickups, something that would cause chaos in traffic but no damage to anything but the mental health of commuters. This is risky, though: How would you keep these low-wage mischief-makers from talking? What you need is an accomplice with authority to block the road. Now, if you could make a deal with the government…nah, the government always acts for the good of the people. Yeah, right. Drivers in Austin, Texas, noticed a disturbing coincidence just as segment three of the privately owned State Highway 130 toll road opened for business in 2007—the free roads they had been driving on suddenly clogged up. An extra traffic signal appeared on State Highway 71. And U.S. 183 Liberty Hill traffic was shunted to a frontage road with—ta-da!—a new stoplight. No problem avoiding this impediment. Take 183A, which just happens to be another toll road. You bet there were complaints. A spokesman for the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority—this is the tolling agency—answered by saying that the toll road is now “the primary corridor for traffic in that area.” Just part of the plan, ma’am. It’s a lucrative plan, too. Citizens complain of toll rates as high as $1.50 a mile. It’s also a bare-faced bait-and-switch scheme by the planners. Just like light rail and other mass-transit flimflams, this deal was floated with the promise that it would ease traffic on existing roads. Sure did! But only because they were made intolerable. Although the public is always kept in the dark until it’s too late, hobbling the free-road alternatives is SOP in these public-private toll roads. Read all about it in the contract’s noncompete clause. When the last segment of the E-470 toll road opened in 2003 around Denver, Colorado, motorists in suburban Commerce City were surprised to find that the speed limit on nearby Tower Road dropped from 55 mph to 40. Shiny new traffic signals also sprouted up at 96th, 104th, and 112th avenues. It took three years for irritated locals to ferret out the noncompete clause in the original contract between the state and the private toll agency. It demands the speed-limit reduction and the three new signals—and forbids all improvements to Tower Road before 2008 that would cause E-470 tolls to “be materially impaired or reduced.” According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “noncompete clauses have been key components of agreements between states and the consortia” that build toll roads. “Financial markets require assurances as part of the bonding agreement that competing facilities within the same travel corridor will not be built,” said the Colorado Department of Transportation. The most notorious noncompete was surely the one negotiated between the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the California Private Transportation Company for building what are now called the 91 Express Lanes from Anaheim east about 10 miles to the Riverside County line. It forbade improvements out to year 2030 to the Riverside Freeway, which runs alongside. No mass transit could be built in that corridor, either. When motorists found out the gotcha side of this deal, protest forced the state to buy back the venture in 2002 for $207.5 million. It now operates without the no-improvements clause. Toll roads are about the money, and governments are eager participants. They increase their harvest by jacking up lease fees, which private investors are happy to pay in exchange for the guarantee of more salmon flowing through the gates. Your chance to join the salmon run may be in the planning stage even now. A number of states are scheming to set up tollbooths on interstate highways. Pennsylvania announced a $3 million contract with McCormick Taylor to set up a system to track and record every car on Interstate 80 for billing purposes. This is the same McCormick Taylor that has been pumping campaign donations into the coffers of Governor Edward Rendell and then Speaker of the House John Perzel. Watch out for Maine, too. Lawmakers in that state have put forward a plan for tolls on sections of Interstates 95 and 295 that have always been free roads. Such a scheme will require federal approval, but the fix is already in—the last highway bill set up a pilot program allowing three existing interstate facilities to be converted to tolls. Already states are crowding in line to grab those three openings. Texas has been spending gas-tax money on a PR campaign, “Keep Texas Moving,” to drum up public support for toll roads. Now that we know how the government eagerly conspires with owners of private toll roads to funnel us through the toll gates, here’s the question we salmon should be asking about a future of government-owned toll roads: Will bottlenecks be thrown up on the competing “free roads,” a quaint term for the highways we’ve already paid for once? "

5/20/2008 2:37:22 PM

^I read that when i got that issue back in January. Its pretty scary stuff and total bullshit.

5/20/2008 2:39:51 PM

Quote :

"Since this will be a modern roadway I imagine they'll have high speed EZpass toll booths, if they have EZpass at all (based on the other comments). Signs for those state to go 55mph, but from my experience 70mph doesn't make a difference. "

It definately does make a difference if you speed through the high speed EZpass toll booths. I went through a 30mph Toll booth at 40mph and they tried to suspend my EZpass for 2 months. I appealed and they accepted it but yea, you definately cannot speed through the fast ones.


with that said, fuck toll roads. The northeast's roads are just as shitty if not worse than down south. I dont know where all that money goes too, but its certainly not to fix the shitty ass roads New York has.

5/20/2008 2:41:31 PM

Quote :

"If we don't get no tolls then we don't eat no rolls."

-NCDOT

5/20/2008 2:42:36 PM

Quote :

"It definately does make a difference if you speed through the high speed EZpass toll booths. I went through a 30mph Toll booth at 40mph and they tried to suspend my EZpass for 2 months. I appealed and they accepted it but yea, you definately cannot speed through the fast ones. with that said, fuck toll roads. The northeast's roads are just as shitty if not worse than down south. I dont know where all that money goes too, but its certainly not to fix the shitty ass roads New York has."

You are talking about something completely different. You're talking about an actual toll booth. I'm talking about a metal structure above the highway with sensors on it. You simply drive under it. Your speed shouldn't matter much, its just important that you stay in your lane.

5/20/2008 3:14:47 PM

^we have those in NC for trucks and weigh stations.

5/20/2008 3:59:11 PM

^^Ahhh gotcha. my bad

5/20/2008 4:04:16 PM

fuck toll booths. if NC wants toll booths, PUT THEM ON FUCKING I-95 so the out of state people foot part of the bill, like all of the northern states do whenever I drive through them. Putting a toll on a local road is just another way to tax your own population, while everyone from out of state gets a free ride through on I-95.

5/20/2008 4:04:28 PM

I don't care if they decide to make it a toll road, as long as it stops being a toll road once its inevitably paid for. The government, when it gets funding, should also budget some money to help the taxpayers pay it off to boot.

Of course, this would never happen, but they'd meet a lot less resistance this way.

5/20/2008 4:07:07 PM

Quote :

"fuck toll booths. if NC wants toll booths, PUT THEM ON FUCKING I-95 so the out of state people foot part of the bill, like all of the northern states do whenever I drive through them. Putting a toll on a local road is just another way to tax your own population, while everyone from out of state gets a free ride through on I-95. "

Cause that doesn't make any sense, isn't the problem, and the people using it aren't causing the traffic problems in Raleigh. You are a fucking genius though, regurgitating retarded arguments you've heard from morons.

5/20/2008 4:33:51 PM

anybody have a link to a map of this road? I want to see where exactly it is going.

5/20/2008 6:02:53 PM

Quote :

"The northeast's roads are just as shitty if not worse than down south. I dont know where all that money goes too, but its certainly not to fix the shitty ass roads New York has."

The nice thing is that by charging tolls in New Jersey is that it seems that both the Turnpike and Parkway have teams that are just about dedicated to keeping the road clean in inclement weather and they do a damn good job of it. The toll sucks, but it's well worth it in a commute heavy state to not have the major routes turn into death traps when the weather gets bad.

[Edited on May 20, 2008 at 6:34 PM. Reason : .]

5/20/2008 6:33:52 PM

Ok first off there will not be any toll booths on any of the toll roads built in North Carolina. You will either get a transponder or they will send you a bill in the mail by reading your license plate. People with transponders will pay less than the people without, due to processing and postage also its an attempt to encourage people to get transponders. Also you will not have to slow down for the transponders to be read.

Also this project or any other toll facility is not being built or maintained by the NCDOT its being done by the North Carolina Turnpike Authority. So while a good majority of the initial start up money is coming from taxes once the facilities are constructed, maintenance and additional roads will be payed for with money generated from people actually using the roads.

Map for ^^
http://www.ncturnpike.org/projects/Triangle_Expressway/

[Edited on May 20, 2008 at 6:39 PM. Reason : :]

5/20/2008 6:38:09 PM

I am not sure but you cannot pull a toll road on the interstate

5/20/2008 6:49:04 PM

Come to Japan...where every highway is a toll road.

5/20/2008 6:58:56 PM

^^ they have them on interstates everywhere else in the country

5/20/2008 7:05:36 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_tqLVNcIS8

5/20/2008 7:42:57 PM

Gas tax is paid by drivers. You could raise the gas tax in order to fund you new road.

Or you could spend more of the taxpayers money making toll gates to finance the road.

Less short term political damage, so we go with option #2. Brilliant.

5/20/2008 7:48:21 PM

So you think at a time when gas is $4 a gallon that's when we should increase the gas tax?

5/20/2008 7:52:14 PM

Quote :

"I am not sure but you cannot pull a toll road on the interstate"

drive from here to new jersey on I-95 without any cash and see what happens.

5/20/2008 7:52:37 PM

Quote :

"Cause that doesn't make any sense, isn't the problem, and the people using it aren't causing the traffic problems in Raleigh. You are a fucking genius though, regurgitating retarded arguments you've heard from morons."

very well thought out response.
why tax people from out of state and bring money IN to our state, when we can all pay more taxes right here whenever we drive to work!

5/20/2008 7:54:15 PM

Quote :

" drive from here to new jersey on I-95 without any cash and see what happens."

umm...nothing? I've driven to new jersey on i-95 and never payed a toll. You must be confusing it with the jersey turnpike. and around the DC area there are tolls but its not i-95

5/20/2008 8:14:50 PM