Trust North Carolina to take an ordinarily decent idea (toll roads) and screw it up just a little.
Recently, an extension of NC-147 (commonly known as the Durham Freeway) linking I-40 with NC-540 was completed and opened to traffic. My understanding is that the combination of that segment of 147 and 540 as it is extended will be known as the Triangle Expressway. The 147 extension is a toll road.
This is all well and good; I'm in favor of the concept of toll roads in general (nevermind that the funds will probably be misappropriated and will not take the place of any existing transportation taxes). The problem is the execution, which makes no sense.
The night the extension was opened, I drove its length just to check it out, since tolls don't start until next month. Unless my superhuman powers of observation of the idiotic have failed me (and they rarely do), our fair state has made a decision that can only be described as bone-headed.
What I observed is that the road has exactly half the number of toll devices that it should. In the southbound direction, toll devices are only on exit ramps. Going north, toll devices are only on entrance ramps. Do you see the problem? Toll rates are based on only one end of the route, instead of being based on the distance traveled along the tollway.
An illustration:
Assume the tollway has four interchanges along its length. If Joe Driver is traveling south, enters the tollway at its beginning and exits at the first exit, he is charged 37 cents. If he travels the full length of the tollway (past the first two exits), he is charged 50 cents. Makes sense. However, if Joe had entered from the next-to-last exit, he would still pay 50 cents.
Similarly, if Joe travels north from the first exit in that direction, he pays 50 cents regardless of where he exits the tollway.
Am I the only one that thinks this is, in a word, dumb?
Ultimately this doesn't affect me in the slightest. I have almost zero reason to travel that particular route anyway, and certainly not one compelling enough to make me eschew the alternate, toll-free paths. It's just the idiocy of the situation that irks me. The fact that here is a multi-million-dollar example of you're doing it wrong right in my back yard, that my state tax dollars funded. *sigh*
hahaha, goverment at its finest. The toll roads should be at the entrances into the state and paid only by non-NC residents. You are right hte money will not go to the highways which is why they are putting a toll road in the first place.
ReplyDeletesorry for the spelling errors
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