Federal Highway Administrator Mendez helps break ground on North Carolina's innovative Triangle Expressway

Every once in a while, I have to let the other DOT leaders in on some of the fun. So, yesterday, Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez traveled to North Carolina to take part in a groundbreaking ceremony for that state's Triangle Expressway. He was joined by US Rep. David Price, NCDOT Secretary Gene Conti, and Turnpike Authority Executive Director David Joyner.

The Triangle Expressway (TriEX) is a controlled-access 18.8-mile toll road from Research Triangle Park to Holly Springs designed to save commuters about 20 minutes per trip. But it's not just another highway.

This project will be designed and built to use an all-electronic toll collection system. There will be no toll booths and no stopping to pay tolls.  Customers purchase a transponder that automatically charges for road use.  If you don't have a transponder, overhead high-speed cameras can snap an image of your license plate and drivers will be billed according to the number of miles driven. 

While Triangle Expressway toll rates have not been set, similar toll facilities around the country charge tolls in the range of 10 to 20 cents per mile.

Another novel idea used by the Turnpike Authority has been its creative approach to financing. With gas and tax revenues declining and North Carolina’s population exploding, North Carolina will fall billions short of the revenue needed for roads, bridges and transit over the next 25 years.  So the state has had no choice but to search for alternative financing sources to build transportation infrastructure. In this case, the state used $270 million in toll-revenue bonds and $353 million in Build America bonds. DOT supplied the remaining financing of $386 million in TIFIA loans.

Financing new projects with toll-backed securities allows bonds to be issued to finance new transportation infrastructure decades sooner than otherwise possible.  Toll financing is based on user fees and requires no increase in taxes and actually frees existing resources for use on other transportation projects. The folks who pay for the road are the folks who use the road.

Another benefit? According to the News & Observer, "The project will support an estimated 13,800 construction-related jobs over the next 42 months." A related article in the News & Observer says many of those jobs will got to workers "who have been unemployed for months."

The Turnpike Authority worked closely with local planning organizations, the NCDOT, transportation advocacy groups, local chambers of commerce, and local and state elected officials to ensure full public participation through every step of the planning, design and engineering process. That's the kind of stakeholder collaboration that leads to a successful project.

I want to thank Administrator Mendez for representing the Department at the groundbreaking event. I also want to congratulate the Turnpike Authority and wish future Tri EX drivers in North Carolina the best as this innovative project gets underway.

Comments

[Rob]

Perhaps a prerequisite for accessing federal highway funding for proposed highway expansions in urbanized areas, and especially non-attainment areas, should be that congestion-based variable pricing be implemented on *all* lanes of the improved facility, and further that such improvements to the facility include an appropriate parallel (or intergal) transit component so as to offer automobile owners a high-quality alternative to driving.

[Stephen]

North Carolina needs better transportation NOT more roads. This road will further encourage the auto-dependent sprawl in western and southern Wake County and beyond. At a minimum, what North Carolina really needs is 1) some political leadership in urban and regional planning; 2)billions invested in trains, transit-oriented development and other transportation modes; 3) high density infill development in urban and suburban areas. Sorry, but this development is certainly nothing to celebrate. The same economic development and bleeding edge technology could be coming in the form of transit development, TOD, and other projects that would contribute to the region's sustainability.

[Ken Jedison]

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