Wake leaders approve toll road

Leg of I-540 to link RTP, Holly Springs

A Wake area planning board gave its final blessing Wednesday to a planned 18.6-mile toll road from Research Triangle Park to Holly Springs, which could start serving commuters and other paying customers by 2011.

The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization also began planning to widen a four-mile Interstate 40 bottleneck in West Raleigh, also by 2011.

Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly cast the only vote against an N.C. Turnpike Authority plan to build the state's first modern toll road through western Wake and RTP. He said the CAMPO board should not approve the proposal until financial details are ironed out.

Citing a negative vote Tuesday by the Apex Town Council, he said it was unfair for the state to collect tolls on part of the I-540 Outer Loop in western Wake after building its northern section toll-free.

"I consider the Outer Loop one project," Weatherly said. "It's a flawed concept to toll only a portion of a project. But I'm not against tolls -- I think the concept of user fees is a good one."

Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker said Wake County has been shortchanged in state spending priorities. Raleigh spends $10 million in city property taxes each year on road improvements that should be state-funded, he said.

But Meeker and other CAMPO board members said residents cannot hope to see the western Wake road built in the next 25 years unless tolls are used. All drivers in the area stand to benefit, because the toll road will ease congestion on existing roads, he said.

"They can ride the toll road and pay tolls if they want to, or else they can ride N.C. 55 and have less traffic than they would otherwise have," Meeker said.

The turnpike authority voted Wednesday to call the new 18.6-mile road the Triangle Expressway. It combines an old plan to extend N.C. 147 south through the center of RTP with a section of the Outer Loop from RTP south to Holly Springs.

The two are linked by a short section of I-540, now under construction, to be opened for toll-free traffic by late June. When the rest of the Triangle Expressway is built and starts operation in 2010 and 2011, the state also will start collecting tolls on the I-540 segment that opens next month.

Turnpike officials said that, without CAMPO's approval, they would have been forced by federal regulations to delay plans for the Triangle Expressway by at least two years. If the General Assembly approves a request for $18 million per year to cover an expected gap between toll revenue and overall costs, the expressway project could start construction in early 2008.

David Joyner, the turnpike authority director, said the state agency would work with CAMPO and local boards in other parts of the state to help ease public concerns about toll roads.

"It's not easy for the locals to understand why they have to be the first ones, they have to pay tolls and others do not," Joyner told turnpike board members. "But it's part of our job. It's part of the pain we have to get through."

Also Wednesday, the CAMPO board proposed to start work in late 2008 on a $36 million plan to widen I-40 from four to six lanes on a four-mile stretch between Wade Avenue and Cary. Wake officials are hopeful that the I-40 upgrade will be ratified late this year when the state Board of Transportation updates its plans.