Study: $2 toll for 16-mile I-540 trip

The fee could pay 75 percent of the tab and speed building of the western arc, 2 others

A pair of proposed freeways through Research Triangle Park and western Wake County could be built by 2011 as a combined toll project. Drivers would pay about $2 to travel 16 miles.

Tolls would cover about 75 percent of the $800 million tab for the Triangle Parkway and Interstate 540's Western Wake Freeway, according to a preliminary study commissioned by the N.C. Turnpike Authority.

Several Wake mayors said they are concerned about where the rest of the money would come from. And with work nearly finished on I-540's toll-free, 31-mile northern arc, the mayors want more information before agreeing that drivers should pay to use other parts of the same freeway.

State and local leaders are balancing the pain of tolls against the benefits of speedy relief for traffic congestion around RTP. The state Department of Transportation says it will not have enough money from tax collections to complete the Western Wake Freeway from Morrisville to Holly Springs until after 2020.

"If we were of a mind to wait until that funding is available, it would eventually get built," said Cary Mayor Ernie McAlister. "Clearly that road is needed now. It is the main road between the southern part of the county and the region's main job engine."

Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly said the toll rates seem excessive. "I have grave concerns about its viability," he said.

A handful of Wake mayors, who asked for the financial study last fall, were briefed on its findings this week. The full report, by South Carolina-based Wilbur Smith Associates, will be released at a turnpike board meeting Tuesday.

David W. Joyner, the turnpike authority director, said the preliminary numbers are encouraging. The report projects about 26,600 daily, toll-paying motorists in 2011, growing to about 70,000 in 2030. It predicts the toll road will reduce traffic on nearby N.C. 55 from 25,000 daily drivers in 2002 to 18,000 in 2011.

"The good news is that it's a financially feasible project," Joyner said. Two more rounds of financial study are required before Wall Street bankers consider whether to provide loans that would be repaid with toll money.

State and local officials are not being asked yet whether to approve the project, Joyner said.

The turnpike board heard separate fiscal projections a few months ago for building the four-mile Triangle Parkway south from I-40 through RTP, crossing I-540 and ending at McCrimmon Parkway in Morrisville.

The new study suggests that the state could cut costs and toll rates by building the Triangle and Western Wake projects together instead of separately.

To join the two roads together, the Wilbur Smith report floats the idea of collecting tolls on a short stretch of I-540 that is scheduled to open in 2007 as a toll-free road. That idea could run against state law, which forbids tolls on existing roads.

The report says the state could add another toll project by 2015 -- the 16-mile Southern Wake Freeway, extending I-540 from Holly Springs to Garner.

I-540 runs 17 miles from I-40 in RTP to U.S. 1 in North Raleigh. The DOT expects to finish expanding it to 31 miles from N.C. 55 at Morrisville to U.S. 64 at Knightdale in 2007.

While toll financing would pay only 75 percent of the construction cost, Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker noted that all future maintenance expenses would be covered as well. He said he will push DOT to cover the rest of the building costs. "They would have to," Meeker said. "The ability to get a road built at one-quarter of the cost, and to have the maintenance taken care of, would be advantageous to DOT."

State law calls for tolls to be dropped once a road is paid for, but Weatherly wondered whether officials would ever stop collecting tolls.

"To say I'm willing to make indentured servants out of those folks who need the road for their entire careers is a weighty decision to make," Weatherly said.