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Want support for a toll?
First, pay back the money that was raided from the highway funds to balance our budget. Add to that the $12m that is being requested for us to fund a private road. Remove even the thought of adding tolls to a feeder (pathetic)

Publish the budget gap and supporting details to the web so we can track payback progress

Add tolls to the existing loop so there is no discrimination based on geography and construction timing. Don't hide behind the "we cant put tolls on existing highways" law. The Turnpike folks were all to ready to do that if they could add tolls to 95.

Toll collection system (i.e. EZ Pass) should be inexpensive and subsidized by toll revenue. Capital expenditures should consider the temporary nature of the project.

Tolls are immediately removed once the construction is paid for.

George S, Cary

The state bureaucracy promoting and overseeing toll roads is ALREADY established. One could practically hear the steady drip-drip-drip of saliva hitting the floor in that agency when this idea - their "home run" opportunity - was first floated. This is yet another example of government entities profiting from promotion of rapid population growth in this area. The best examples, of course, are the local municipalities whose revenue structure not only promotes rapid annexation and sprawl but DEPEND on it. Elected officials get the revenue they crave without tax increases by taxing us instead with pollution, traffic, and 30, 40, 50 mile commutes, correctly recognizing that we are more complacent about loss of habitat than tax dollars. Cary, Apex, and the former town known as Holly Springs have been relatively silent on the toll road idea because a primary busness goal for them is to out-annex their neighbors (for a graphic picture of the 'divide and exclude' strategy, see a recent map of Cary), and the toll road will not slow this process down. Those towns are already building infrastructure as fast as they can and don't predict that they can reliably keep up with the pace of developement once 540 extends down western Wake.

There was a front page article in the Sunday January 21 issue about area newcomers, and to me the most telling comment from that article was the characterization of the Triangle as “It’s like Suffolk County 30 years ago” by a family who fled that county due to it's faltering quality of life. That pretty much says what we’re in for: in a fairly short time, we too will live in a region that people seek to flee. Folks will continue to move here until our quality of life is worse than the alternatives, or until we decide that we have something special and take control of its growth. But the industry that feeds off the growth – land speculators, developers, real estate agents – are a powerful force, working with local governments so that profit is realized by all.

Meanwhile, I'd like to know how 'paving the way' for thousands of acres of farmland (active or potential) to conversion to a pollution source for Cary's water source by long-distance commuters who will also contribute thousands of tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants to the atmosphere annually is going to improve our quality of life? Jordan lake is already listed as threatened because of development runoff, a process that will open up exponentially once this thing rolls.

For most people living and working in the Triangle, growth is viewed as an inevitable consequence of success. It’s not, but it is a consequence of letting the people who make their fortunes from growth do all the deciding.

Tolls are simply another form of tax, but they are a direct form.  I prefer direct taxation(like sales taxes or tolls) to general and ambiguous taxation(like State or federal taxes).

Tolls are the best way to directly tax the specific beneficiaries(including illegal aliens) of department of transportation spending for exactly what they use.  Tolling should also be a great opportunity to alleviate general tax burdens on citizens who cannot benefit from that spending.

There are two problems though.  Tolling is appropriate as a means to REPLACE funds appropriated to the DOT by the state legislature.  It is not appropriate as a means to ADD MORE NEW MONEY to an already excessive state budget.   That point regarding budgeting is absolutely critical. 

A toll system worth supporting will coincide with equivalent INCOME TAX CUTS for the general public, as the new funds supplant monies from the state general fund, which were previously allocated to the DOT.

Secondly, a toll system will collect millions of dollars in cash, and wherever that kind of money exists, so is the likelihood for corruption and inappropriate behavior.  Tolling systems must be regulated, audited, and well documented.

But folks who live in western NC ought not pay one dime for a highway built in the triangle, until the day they drive on it.  Its really that simple. 

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.

The policy decisions in North Carolina and especially in the Triangle are leading us in the wrong direction.

There are better ways that are sustainable. Check out links at the City of  Raleigh's Urban Design Center's 21st Century Cities Lecture page. 

Growing up in the northeast and in DC, I've been paying tolls for as long as i can remember. Now that everyone has a transponder in their car, tolls are a piece of cake and you speed through sometimes as fast as 55mph.  If you drive the road, you should pay for it, plain and simple.  in 20 years once the road is paid for the tolls get removed or the toll gets reduced to keep up road work.  I would rather pay a toll than get taxed for roads i NEVER use although i know that happens already sometimes. anyway i vote for tolls if need be. once you get a transponder and have it reloaded automaticly via CC, you'll forget about it.

When the first-class citizens of Wake County (in the northern part) need a road, everyone has to pony up tax money to pay for it.

But when it's time for us second-class citizens of Wake County (in the southern part) to get a road, we have to pay a toll (WHILE STILL PAYING TAXES TO HELP MAINTAIN THE ROAD IN THE NORTHERN PART OF THE COUNTY).

Forget that, sez I (actually that's not what I sez, but I'm trying to keep the language family-friendly).  I will not pay a toll on any road unless they make the first-class citizens pay a toll, too.  

We got the lotto and the toll roads, what's next in our journey to sleezeville?

Once we get to 75% non-native, I'm escaping north and following the climate change... to the depopulating woods of NY State.

If you haven't realized that this is supposed to be the "Good Roads State", laugh Bruce if you wish, the politicians have raided the Highway fund for their own little, yeah 12 miles of driveway in Pasquotank county is little, for years please people realize that you have to vote the Ol'boys out of Raleigh to change the Highway spending calculations, the Outer Loop has been on the books since the 80's, so that traffic counts reflect where the money is needed the most.  To those who say the rest of Wake county is hiding behind "You can't hide behind tolling and existing Interstate", its a federal law when the Highway Act was passed in 1956, you cannot toll a road built with federal tax dollars, the so-called Triangle Expressway cannot be signed as an Interstate without Congressional approval if built with state tax dollars and toll bonds, check www.fhwa.gov if you don't believe me.

So, unlike most states NC has a high gas tax, and a vehicle property tax to pay for these roads to begin with. Tolling is just a bad idea, for every $1 they take in $.30 will go to supporting the toll infrastructure. So only $.70 will go to the roads. Additionally for anyone that has lived in a toll road state we all know that once tolls go up, they NEVER come down, so don't even think that they will be eliminated once the road has be "paid for" because that would mean people will lose their jobs and the state will lose a significant source of revenue. You only have to look to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge that connects Brooklyn, NY to Staten Island, NY. Politicians swore that once the bridge was paid for the toll would be removed, currently that bridge gets paid for twice a day with the toll money they recieve.

I would rather pay higher gas tax, or higher property tax and not create a bigger government that will tax me to use roads I help pay for.