CHRIS SEWARD - cseward@newsobserver.com
A vehicle goes under one of the toll gantries as it enters of the Triangle Expressway. Tolls are not going to be assessed until January 2012.
Before state transportation officials cut a red ribbon Thursday morning to open the six-lane Triangle Expressway through Research Triangle Park, they thanked local elected leaders who had endorsed the unpopular idea of collecting tolls from drivers to pay for the road.
"It wasn't an easy thing," said David Joyner, executive director of the N.C. Turnpike Authority. "The northern loop was free. This one, we were asking citizens to pay. You stepped up and you made the tough decision, and you decided a toll road is better than no road."
When it's completed, the 18.8-mile TriEx will combine two new highways and an existing section of the 540 Outer Loop into North Carolina's first modern toll road. There appears to be wide agreement among residents and commuters that the fast-growing region needs the new roads, but time will tell whether drivers want them enough to pay tolls for each trip.
By lunchtime Thursday, a few drivers were using the first 3.7-mile section of TriEx, which extends N.C. 147 south from Interstate 40 through RTP to the 540 Outer Loop. Electronic toll collection will start Jan. 3, after 26 days of toll-free driving.
This had been marked as "Triangle Parkway" on the original RTP map in 1958, but there was no state money to build it until it was mentioned as a possible toll road in 2004.
It connects to an existing section of 540 that opened a few years ago as a tax-funded, free expressway. Drivers will start paying tolls in August on this leg of 540, between N.C. 54 and N.C. 55, which is being incorporated into the Triangle Expressway.
The longer piece of TriEx still under construction will extend the 540 Outer Loop through western Wake County from RTP to Holly Springs. It is to open by December 2012.
The state Department of Transportation had planned to start building it in 2008 with tax dollars. But in 2005 the schedule was postponed indefinitely, and the road known then as the Western Wake Freeway became another candidate for toll financing.
"The community decided they didn't want to wait 20 or 30 years for this road," Gene Conti, the DOT secretary, said Thursday. "They said, 'We want a road. We understand there's not money to pay for it.' "
Many western Wake residents are looking forward to six lanes of relief from congestion on N.C. 55 and other clogged roads, but not all are satisfied with the decision to finish the Outer Loop as a toll road in southern and western Wake.
"A commitment was made, and the northern portion of the Loop was completed with public money," Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly said.
