Drive I-540? That’ll be $25 million PLUS toll fees.

With the completion of I-540 westward, NC will likely get its first toll road, in large part due to the lobbying force of the NC Turnpike Authority – a division of the NC Department of Transportation (NC DOT). It seems that the “good roads state” continues be committed to building new roads, even in the face of skyrocketing construction (click here and check out #4) and fuel costs (over $4/gallon).

To get our first toll road, it will take an act of the NC Legislature (because toll roads, contrary to what you might assume, don’t pay for themselves). And, last week the NC House gave the green light for funding of the construction of a new six-lane toll road: the Triangle Expressway. In the face of a budget crunch, you might ask yourself ‘where are they going to get this money?’ In short, the House has proposed transferring $25 million from the General Fund to the NC Turnpike Authority, so it can quickly build the Triangle Expressway. In recent years, this $25 million has funded education, crime prevention, human services, and more. In the face of rising transportation and fuel costs, this appropriated money will still not cover the costs of building this toll road. Compile this fact with the new knowledge that data used to base cost estimates for the Triangle Expressway are out-of-date, and you inevitably create a black (pot) hole for tax-payer dollars.

While many have been frustrated by how I-540 dead-ends (including those of us who vow to stay inside the beltline), one has to wonder if it makes sense for the completion of this loop to be made into a toll road. And, does it make sense for NC to continue funneling money into new road projects, rather then maintaining the current infrastructure we have? Especially in light of the recurring problems and criticism the DOT has faced.

For all of the problems toll roads (and new roads in general) bring, it seems like a good idea for North Carolina leaders to take some time to think about how we can continue to travel sustainably, without wasting tax-payer money and killing our small towns.

Dana06/11 04:40 PM

Those numbers sound large. Let’s put them into perspective. This western portion of I-540 is estimated to cost about anywhere from $560M to $1.050B for the 12.6 mile stretch. (forget the fact that the estimated cost range is absurdly enormous and proposed by a turnpike authority that needs to inflate numbers to try to convince us that their very existence is necessary. Case in point: the estimated cost for this project just two years ago was $351.4M). Two years ago the section of I-540 near the airport was handling around 75K cars per day. Let’s assume that each car has a single driver and that this new stretch of I-540 will carry about the same load. This means that the road will cost anywhere from $7,467 to $14,000 per daily user.

The alternative is what, rail? While the STAC plan is a more extended plan than the TTA’s original plan, it doesn’t furnish enough numbers for comparison yet. However if we look at the TTA’s old 28-mile diesel rail plan, its cost estimates 2 years ago were pointing to $808M in construction costs (likely over $1B now). It furnished an ambitious ridership estimate of 14,000 riders per day. Those two-year old figures, then, pointed to $57,714 per daily rider.

While road costs are going up, it is unfortunate that this article and Fitzsimon’s don’t report the amount by which high-occupancy transit has escalated. The last time I checked, $58K was WAY more than $14K.

Yes, I am decrying rail, but only in the context of today’s technology. I see no reason why we can’t get the costs of rail down. Unfortunately we are stuck in an inflexible, custom construction, high-occupancy unit paradigm when it comes to alternatives to oil-burning, human-driven cars. I’d personally like to see the world’s great engineers quit worrying about throwing darts into the moon, running remote truck toys on Mars, and building better NASCARs. We currently have a major transit issue in every city of the world. THIS is what really begs our scientific attention.

Gere06/12 09:23 AM

this road is going to be built at some point and i’d rather spend $25 million and have users of the road pay for the rest instead of my tax dollars paying the full billion dollars for it. remember, despite what some people think, transit doesn’t pay for itself either and toll roads affect land use patterns just like transit does. it encourages people to live closer to their work to save from paying the toll. again, the loop is going to be built and i’d rather see the folks using it pay for it.

also, wouldn’t the money to cover the transfer come from the budget surplus?

Steve W06/12 01:37 PM

What budget surplus?

Roads never encourage people to live near where they work. They artificially inflate the market for auto-oriented land use patterns that are not sustainable in the long-run. That money from the general fund should be spent on health care (including mental health) and education, not more sprawl-inducing highways and toll roads. Does anyone really think we need MORE urban sprawl, in the Triangle of all places? Cities like Atlanta are starting to lose companies and jobs because they can’t attract enough skilled workers anymore. And the only thing Atlanta can do is wish they hadn’t made that mistake in the first place.

Dana06/12 03:00 PM

A) Since when did spending more on education directly result in better performance? There are countless places that spend more per child than we do and have a far worse education problem.

B) Cities like Atlanta?...who have a very basic rail system (that is still nicer than the one we’ve proposed). Everyone wants to avoid becoming the next Atlanta, yet is a proponent of doing things exactly the same way they did 30 years ago. Rail costs at least 4X per person being moved. Talk about non-sustainability! Atlanta is a prime example of a system that costs too much to grow with its city. The idea was that all the new growth would happen 0.5mi from the MARTA stops, but in fact, that increased demand caused skyrocketing real estate values around the nodes. Newcomers opted for more house on cheaper land, hence sprawl. We haven’t seen the string of pearls work in Atlanta, and we won’t see it happen here (as long as we use that tired old paradigm of custom-built, high-occupancy rail transit).

Let’s learn from Atlanta’s mistakes instead of recreating them. BTW, Atlanta isn’t even CLOSE to losing jobs and skilled workers. I supposed Houston is just a wasteland of ignorance, too? Who would ever move there? (Answer: more people than have moved to the State of Oregon in the last 50 years, that’s all).

Steve W06/12 03:26 PM

Dana, no offense, but you have committed at least three logical errors in your last post!

Yes, Houston is by-and-large a wasteland. That’s why land is cheap, although I don’t know anyone who would want to move there.

It’s not that spending on education directly results in better performance, but since the money for these toll roads would come from what is currently spend on education, are you suggesting that there is a direct correlation between cutting education funding and improved performance? Your implication that the amount of spending in other communities relates directly to educational problems in our community is not a valid argument, nor is it true.

I completely agree with you that Atlanta is not a city that has a great deal of transportation choices, in spite of having a very expensive rail system. That’s because transportation is a derivative of land use patterns, and the massive quantity of urban sprawl there isn’t going anywhere, but that doesn’t make it sustainable development.

Transit is only as useful as the destinations that are with walking distance of it. So if we get the land use right by starting with our downtowns, transit will become increasingly efficacious and worthy of public expenditure.

Gere06/12 04:20 PM

The $150 million surplus. http://www.newsobserver.com/1565/story/1100883.html

Neither education or mental health was cut in this year’s budget.

You’re right, traditional roads in themselves do not promote urban density, but toll roads do. Home buyers will shy away from moving too far south to avoid paying a greater toll. The closer they live to RTP, the less toll they pay.

Steve W06/12 06:07 PM

Toll roads are still roads, and roads induce urban sprawl.

How about we just don’t build the Triangle Expressway at all, and put that money into transit and maintaining roads and bridges instead?

Gere06/13 06:50 AM

That is like saying hybrid cars are still cars and they offer no added benefit over non-hybrid cars.

Steve W06/13 07:50 AM

Gere, the reason it’s different is because hybrids are a different fuel source for a car that was going to be purchased regardless. This is a toll road that shouldn’t be built at all regardless of how we pay for it.

PackGuy06/13 08:04 AM

Steve,

Just because you’ll never use the Triangle Express way doesn’t mean there aren’t thosands of others in the Triangle that it will benefit their current daily commutes. The original intent was to have an outer loop around the Raleigh area, thus relieving the already over crowded inner belt line. While I do think we should spend more on urban transportation (buses, rail lines, etc.), we should also responsibly finish the cities long term growth and decongestion goals.

Steve W06/13 08:41 AM

PackGuy, actually I WOULD use the Triangle Expressway if it is built. What these urban loops do is artificially inflate the demand for more auto-oriented development (don’t we have enough yet?) that would not be supported by the market otherwise and can’t be removed later when we realize it actually creates MORE congestion when the development in the long-run. It would be pointless to build a rail line if we are going to continue growing outward four times faster than the growth in population. But it’s not roads-versus-transit, it’s roads-versus-better urban planning.

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Nicole Wednesday, June 11, 2008