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How about this: Put up tolls at the VA and SC state lines. Traffic heading into NC pays a modest toll, no charge to leave NC. That arrangement -- generally speaking -- you would not be impacting local/commuting traffic for NC residents who wonk in NC.
Try it for a year. If it road needs to generate more income, try tolling those leaving NC.
** I have no idea what the traffic counts are for traffic on 95 into NC, but it would be pretty easy to estimate how much money could be generated.
Interesting idea. (I bet US-1 would start seeing a LOT more traffic at the border crossing....)
^In principle, I think this is the best idea, but they'd obviously need to work out some details (like people just going around the border and picking it back up to save the toll).
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Myghost
Interesting idea. (I bet US-1 would start seeing a LOT more traffic at the border crossing....)
^In principle, I think this is the best idea, but they'd obviously need to work out some details (like people just going around the border and picking it back up to save the toll).
Yes, that is what people do in Delaware on I-95 where there is a toll. Of course not everyone goes around but lots of people do. It saves $5 each way.
Yes, that is what people do in Delaware on I-95 where there is a toll. Of course not everyone goes around but lots of people do. It saves $5 each way.
I think one of they keys is to make the toll reasonable enough that it isn't worth the effort to avoid it.
When I am traveling, I want to get to where I am going as quickly as possible. Even with the advent of GPS and turn-by-turn directions, it's not worth it to me to save a few bucks. And if you are an infrequent traveler and not familiar with the area, are you going to take the chance of getting lost trying to avoid a toll? (Those online maps aren't perfect.)
All that said, I agree with you, and would rather see them Toll 95 (the cost to business would not be that significant if a truck carrying $100k worth of product had to pay $10 extra) than 540.
The study from a couple of years ago suggested a toll of ~$0.10/mile in rural areas and ~$0.19/mile in urban area for cars. Trucks would be closer to $0.29/mile rural and $0.52/mile urban.
So for a trip the full length of I-95 in NC, a car would pay close to $25, while trucks would be close to $70.
Not going to break the bank, but it would definitely be an expense. Improvements need to be paid for somehow though.
You can read the financing options at http://www.driving95.com/assets/pdfs...s_Analysis.pdf. NCDOT pegs the I-95 improvement program at $4.5 billion in 2011 dollars. That's just the NC portion of I-95. Without tolls or a massive bond program that taxpayers would ultimately pay for, spending $4.5 billion on I-95 would basically mean that no other major project gets built in NC for the foreseeable future. No way that will happen.
You could probably put a toll booth at the first on ramp (or last off ramp for the other direction) to stop most of the exiting around the toll...with EZpass, it would be simple enough to identify "locals" who are using those ramp tolls for local travel and not charge them...
VA has some setup (forget the name / details) which is effectively a "Frequent User" program that puts money back in your EZpass kitty based on trip frequency so something like that could be used as well even if the toll plazas were scattered along I95...
Heck, with EZpass it is all electronically done, so there are many options to choose from. If EZpass and NC resident, allow through and don't charge (or charge less)...any other EZpass OR cash / credit has to pay.
The problem is, highways, rail, whatever costs money and no one wants to pay, while screaming about how everything sucks. That's the problem we really need to solve.
This. A million times this. Everybody wants everything just how they like it, and nobody wants to pay.
Maybe just maybe we need to understand WHY our gas tax is not enough to maintain the roads? Maybe they need to just raise gas taxes?
The federal gas tax was last increased in 1993, and isn't increased to inflation. Couple that with improving fuel economy, and it's a fiscal disaster. Congress isn't likely to fix it.
The federal gas tax was last increased in 1993, and isn't increased to inflation. Couple that with improving fuel economy, and it's a fiscal disaster. Congress isn't likely to fix it.
The Speaker of the U.S. House says today that a gas tax increase isn't going to happen:
The federal gas tax was last increased in 1993, and isn't increased to inflation. Couple that with improving fuel economy, and it's a fiscal disaster. Congress isn't likely to fix it.
Gas tax is an increasingly poor way to raise revenue for road maintenance. I don't see a lot of political will to change to something else, though.
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