Frequently Asked Questions

The NCTA is currently authorized to study, plan, develop and undertake preliminary design work on up to nine toll facilities in the state. At the conclusion of these activities, the NCTA is authorized to design, establish, purchase, construct, operate, and maintain the following projects:

• Monroe Connector/Bypass
• Gaston East-West Connector
• Cape Fear Skyway
• I-74 (Brunswick County)
• Mid-Currituck Bridge
• Triangle Expressway
  • Triangle Parkway
  • Western Wake Parkway

Any other project proposed by the NCTA in addition to the projects listed above must be approved by the NC General Assembly prior to construction.

By law, the Turnpike Authority is prohibited from tolling existing highways. However, in July 2006, Senate Bill 1381 was amended to allow the tolling of a segment of I-540 under construction as of July 1, 2006, located in Wake and Durham counties and extending from I-40 southwest to NC-55, with the approval of the local Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The NCTA is currently authorized to study, plan, develop and undertake preliminary design work on up to nine toll facilities in the state. However, before the NCTA will consider a project for development as a toll road, it must receive a recommendation from local officials that the road/bridge construction project be studied as a toll facility. In addition, enabling legislation requires that any toll road developed in the state must have a free alternate route so that motorists have a choice in deciding whether to travel on a free road or toll road.

The NCTA is currently considering several projects for development as toll roads and conducting various studies for those candidate projects.

Specific costs have not yet been decided, but tolls will be determined by the cost of the construction project. All revenues from tolls will be used to cover the cost of financing and maintaining the road.

While it is too soon to tell what the total project costs would be on any of the potential projects, tolls generally only pay for a portion of the total construction cost. Bonds are sold to raise money so that construction can begin sooner. However, funding from the sale of bonds will pay only part of the construction cost for toll roads. Other local and state funds will still be needed to develop the project.

NCTA projects will be subject to the same planning and environmental documentation requirements as any other proposed highway project. The actual time required to complete this process, prepare the necessary designs, and acquire the needed right-of-way, will vary considerably from project to project, but under a best-case scenario, the earliest a toll facility might be open to traffic would be approximately 2010.

No. It is true that motorists who pay tolls also pay federal and state motor fuel taxes. But the double taxation argument was addressed by the United States Department of Transportation in its 1968 Highway Needs Report to Congress, which states: "The toll road user pays a toll and also pays taxes on fuel consumed while traveling on the toll road. But this is not truly double taxation, since the fuel taxes paid are applied to other highways. The situation is essentially the same as the support of low-volume roads by the taxes 'earned' on high-volume roads." The bottom line is that motorists are not paying twice to use a toll facility. Instead, in return for paying a toll, they are given new road capacity that enables them to reduce losses of time, productivity, and competitiveness.

The accident rate on toll roads is on average around one-third less than on tax-based roads. According to 1998 USDOT statistics, the nation's freeways and expressways had 8.6 fatalities per billion miles traveled. Data for toll roads from the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association indicate a fatality rate of 6.2 per billion miles traveled. While traditional cash toll plazas create backups that present the greatest safety hazard for motorists, often resulting in increased incidences of rear-end collisions, electronic toll collection ultimately will make traditional cash plazas obsolete. Long lines and bottlenecks at tollbooths need no longer be synonymous with toll operations.

North Carolina, like many other states, faces significant gaps between the level of highway service its citizens and businesses demand and the funding available to finance, expand, operate and maintain its highway system. These improvements are needed because they would provide substantial benefits to the traveling public – both to citizens of the local area and to the residents and businesses traveling through the area to other destinations. In addition, the failure to handle growing traffic congestion issues could negatively impact local economic growth and competitiveness in a globalized market environment.

Historically, construction of North Carolina highways has been financed through a “pay-as-you-go” approach, meaning that roads were not built until the necessary funding became available. The major source of such funding came from taxes on motor fuels and lubricants and vehicle registration fees. Over the years, however, this conventional method of financing projects has become less and less workable due to the significant increase in our state’s population and ever increasing demands on the state’s highways.

Fortunately, North Carolina has a plan. With federal support, we and several other states are developing new legal and financial tools to encourage private sector participation to help better meet public expectations concerning personal mobility and improved goods movement.

In the conventional construction approach – known as “design-bid-build” – a final contractor is hired only after the detailed specifications of a project are complete. This approach, however, prevents the project’s design phase from benefiting from insights and expertise that a private sector contractor can bring to the table. Many states, including North Carolina, are now adopting more flexible models of project delivery, known collectively as “public-private partnerships” or “PPPs”. Essentially, a public-private partnership is a contractual agreement between a public agency (federal, state or local) and a private sector entity. Through this agreement, the skills and assets of each sector (public and private) are shared in delivering a service or transportation facility for the general public’s use. Aside from sharing resources, each party also shares in the risks and potential rewards associated with the delivery of that service and/or transportation facility.

There are many types of public-private partnerships in which the private sector assumes a greater role in the planning, financing, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of a transportation facility compared to conventional procurement and finance methods. For a more complete discussion of the various types of PPPs that are being used, please visit the Federal Highway Administration’s web site.

There are several potential advantages related to the use of transportation PPPs, including:

• They save time and can accelerate the delivery of new transportation projects;
• They shift greater risk to the private sector;
• They increase cost certainty to the public sector;
• They allow the public sector to obtain private investment in needed public infrastructure without raising taxes;
• They facilitate the realization of projects that would otherwise be unattainable because of funding limitations; and
• They allow the public sector to benefit from private-sector innovation.

Public-private partnerships can be applied to a large range of transportation functions across all modes. These include:

• Project conceptualization and origination
• Design
• Financial planning and project finance
• Construction
• Operation
• Maintenance
• Toll collection
• Program management

These activities are typically bundled into contract packages reflecting the public agency's objectives related to: schedule and cost certainty; innovative finance; or transfer of management and operational responsibility.

Possibly. The NCTA is exploring the utilization of a PPP procurement approach to deliver the Mid-Currituck Bridge. However, no decision will be made on the type of partnership to be used until a preliminary traffic and revenue study is completed in the fall of 2006.

It is possible. Other projects are being considered for PPP procurements, but no decisions have yet been made as to which projects - if any - are most appropriate for PPP methodology.

We are currently evaluating the different options available for toll collection and interoperability. At this point, we are looking at an open road (highway speed) transponder-based system as our primary means of collection. This would allow our customers to open an account, then drive through our toll collection points unobstructed at highway speeds. A “side ramp” cash option is also being considered for occasional users or those that choose not to open an account.

In the US, there are three transponder-based technologies in operation. A technology provided by Mark IV Industries is installed in 22 toll agencies and 11 states primarily in the northeast under the E-ZPass banner. Another system, provided by TransCore, operates in Georgia (Cruise Card), Florida (SunPass), Texas (TxTag), and Oklahoma (PikePass). The third system is provided by Sirit in California (FasTrak). Currently the E-ZPass agencies are interoperable with other E-ZPass agencies; however, they are not interoperable with technologies outside of the E-ZPass network. The TransCore technologies are not currently interoperable.

Technology continues to evolve rapidly. The newest technology relies on a battery-less transponder sticker tag system, and some states are adopting this technology now.

With the potential for yet another evolution in not only technologies but interoperability alliances, we are planning to make a decision on our toll technology system in late 2007. In the interim, we plan to use “tag readers” in several areas where we have proposed projects to survey existing transponders. Interoperability with other regional programs, along with technology accuracy, ease of use, life-cycle costs and maintainability, will be key factors in our decision.