The appeal of toll roads is simple enough. In effect, toll receipts act as addition to existing highway funding, allowing more roads to be built. Tolls are appropriate for expensive new road projects that would be heavily traveled, as these can be built much more quickly than they otherwise would by issuing bonds against future toll revenues.
Leave it to North Carolina to foul up the concept, though. While the General Assembly established a turnpike authority a few years ago, the selection and scope of projects continues the state’s trend of being unable to prioritize road needs while playing budgetary games. In effect, toll roads in the state will often amount to nothing more than a stealth tax increase, with the General Assembly asking drivers desperate to get where they want to go to pay at the toll booth for roads the state promised to be paid for by a previous tax increase. To make matters worse, the legislature and Gov. Mike Easley have proven quite willing to take money highway money to close state budget gaps.
A case in point is the proposed U.S. 74 bypass around Monroe. When the Assembly raised the gasoline tax and various fees in 1989, one of the projects the extra funds generated was supposed to pay for was improving U.S. 74 from Charlotte all the way to Wilmington. The project has been held up by a combination of local politics and environmental permit problems. Eventually, a toll connector was envisioned between the proposed U.S. 74 bypass and nearby Interstate 485, the Charlotte Outer Belt. Early this year, the plan was revised to make most, if not all, of the bypass a toll road.
The legislature also changed state law to make a portion of I-540, Raleigh’s Outer Loop, now under construction into a toll road. The change was necessary to generate enough toll revenue to build the next section of the road a few years sooner.
Then there’s the case of using tolls as a means to bump a new project up the state’s priority list. Toll roads’ primary initial backer was Sen. David Hoyle, D-Gaston, who had a specific project in mind: the Gaston East-West Connector, also known as the Garden Parkway. The proposed 22.3-mile long highway would serve as a third major artery across the Catawba River between Mecklenburg and Gaston counties before continuing as a sort of loop road around southern Gastonia. If built as a toll road, portions could be open by 2015, far sooner than otherwise possible.
There’s only one problem though: Tolls alone won’t cover the cost of building the highway, the cost of which is now estimated at up to $1.5 billion. Tolls won’t even come close, in fact, and a considerable portion of the road is now envisioned as being toll free. To make up for the funding gap, the project was quietly added in recent years to the list of Highway Trust Fund’s projects.
It’s difficult, though, to make the case that the connector, even with some toll receipts, is among the state’s top highway needs. While the Charlotte region in general is growing rapidly, that does not extend to Gaston County. The county’s population is estimated to have increased by less than 2 percent between the April 2000 census and July 2005. By comparison, North Carolina’s overall population was up 7.9 percent between 2000 and 2005. Mecklenburg County’s population grew by 14.5 percent over the same period.
The request to build the Gaston East-West Connector comes just as the state is delaying many road projects. The NCDOT is having a hard time finding $40 million to widen a seven-mile stretch of an existing urban loop, Charlotte’ I-485, where it is notoriously congested on a daily basis near Pineville.
North Carolina’s road problems come from poor policies and planning. Tolls won’t fix that.
Michael Lowrey is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.