Some Research Triangle Park commuters are unhappy that a planned toll road through RTP will add extra miles, money and minutes to their daily drive to work.
Construction of the planned Triangle Parkway will close a heavily-used half-mile extension of the N.C. 147 Durham Freeway that links Interstate 40 to Alexander Drive.
What do you think?
Click here for more info about transportation in the Triangle.
If a toll road requires public money to be built and operate, it should be built as a free road or not built at all. Unfortunately officals in Durham ignore RTP and even left out of their planning documents for the future. Their idea is to tax the workers in RTP because the area cannot be annexed. Tolls are a tax.
Closing this section of a heavly travled road to and from Alexander Dr. does not make any sense. I use this road every time I go from Apex to Durham.
You would think that a state that has one of the highest gas tax rates could use that money collected from those revenues to build highways rather than ask drivers to pay again in tolls. Just goes to show what bad government and bad politicians can do.
For State Government to offer toll roads as a solution to over congested roads tells me that State Government is incapable of priortizing their work load. It tells me that my taxes are not being utilized properly. It tells me that that the State needs new management and a new sense of fidiciary responsibility. If toll roads are the State's solution, they are simmply not using our gas and road taxes properly. Toll roads are a failed Northern solution to over congestion and do not work.
What really needs to be investigated is the NCDOT. They are the ones who are in charge of doling out money to the overcharging contractors building the roads. That's why we have the highest gas tax and still not able to get the proper roads built and the politicians who are recommending the toll roads are most likely looking to get votes from their constituents rather than the benefit of the driving working public. There's something real wrong with this picture where for as long as there has been vehicles we've had free open roads to drive on and now all of a sudden the toll road bandwagon comes riding into town. What a better cash cow to start milking than the RTP area, huh? Toll roads don't belong in NC and for those that say they do, we need to make a road especially for them that takes them right of town.
I pretty much hate toll roads. But I hate even more the idea that my fellow citizens to the south would be paying a toll when the part of 540 that I use is free. That just isn't, um, fare.
DOT, DOT, DOT, etc....
With all the traffic
With all the traffic congestion around RTP, how does closing a section of 147 that thousands of people use solve any problems?
This is just an attempt to take more money away from the working people. Drivers will not use this toll road, they will drive a few extra miles around it and the state will waste even more money maintining those roads.