CHAPEL HILL - The N.C. Turnpike Authority is advocating regressive toll road solutions that will negatively affect our broader transit needs for the next 40 years. Toll roads lead to taxpayer subsidies that siphon off resources needed for public transportation and create special hardships for lower-income drivers.

The Turnpike Authority is in charge of instituting, building and managing toll roads in our state. It intends to permanently convert the Western Wake Expressway into a toll road, build an additional toll road through Research Triangle Park (the Triangle Expressway) and continue the toll road south to Morrisville (Interstate 540).

The Turnpike Authority plans to use all electronic tolling, rather than manned toll booths. Even though electronic tolling may be more convenient for daily commuters, there are serious environmental-justice consequences no matter how the money is collected. Electronic tolling may eliminate the opportunity for low-income drivers to use the toll facility at all.

Many people assume that the biggest effect that a toll road would have on a low-income driver would be the toll rate. However, other factors about electronic tolling discourage low-income drivers to an even greater extent.

ALTHOUGH THE TURNPIKE AUTHORITY HAS NOT YET DECIDED on a particular electronic tolling technology, it will probably require users to sign up for an account and obtain a transponder. This imposes several difficulties on low- income and minority drivers.

* First, most electronic tolling systems require either a credit card or bank account just to sign up. Many low-income and minority drivers do not have these. A 2002 study at UNC showed that 45 percent of low-income families in the state do not have credit cards and that 25 percent of all minority families in the nation do not have any bank accounts.

* Second, many toll road transponder accounts require a deposit or sign-up fee, a monthly service fee or automatic recharge fee.

* Third, electronic tolling discourages occasional or emergency use by requiring all potential users to go through the hassle of setting up an account and purchasing a transponder in advance. If a driver does not have a transponder and needs to use the toll road for an emergency, he would be subject to a very high fine.

Will the toll road affect many low-income drivers? You bet. One such group would be the many low-income workers who service office buildings. At U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offices alone, there are more than 300 maintenance and custodial contractors who would fall into this category.

IT IS STILL UNCLEAR WHO HAS THE AUTHORITY TO SET OR ADJUST TOLL RATES OR HOW THE REVENUES WILL BE USED. Will any increases in the toll rate have to be approved by a publicly elected board? Will the board decide to increase or decrease the toll based on the remaining construction debt, to provide a maintenance budget or to provide revenue for other projects? Will there be a discount for low-income drivers, transit vehicles or carpools? Will transit rates increase because of the expense of paying tolls?

These questions need to be answered before this toll road project is funded.

Because the toll road plans will close the N.C. 147-Alexander Drive spur, some drivers will avoid the toll road. As a result, commuters will face serious traffic congestion at nearby intersections, which will negatively affect anyone commuting to RTP using those intersections and will exacerbate air quality problems. Since lower-income populations will avoid the toll roads, they will experience the additional hardship of waiting for lights to change at failing intersections.

Lastly, restricting access to publicly funded roadways based on a person's ability to pay is a shift in transportation policy with serious implications for the future. Therefore, this issue needs to be carefully vetted by the legislature.

That body will decide in this year's short session whether to adopt the Turnpike Authority's request for $24 million a year "gap funding" that these toll roads won't cover. That is $24 million a year for 40 years that could be better spent on public transit improvements, such as light rail, recommended by the Special Transportation Advisory Committee. Legislators should do the right thing and put public transit ahead of toll roads.

(Julie McClintock is an EPA employee in RTP and a former Chapel Hill Town Council member.)