Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010

Toll roads have many shortcomings

Once upon a time, the case against toll roads was easy. Because time is money and because toll booths slowed traffic, toll roads were a burden on business. But to their credit - and driver demand, no doubt - toll-road builders have embraced technology so that it's possible to drive on a toll road without stopping to pay the toll.

That forces toll-road skeptics to look elsewhere for defensible arguments against toll roads. Not surprisingly, such arguments are many.

Let's start with commuters, folks like Johnston County tourism chief Donna Bailey-Taylor, who takes Interstate 95 on her daily commute from Benson to Smithfield. She figures a toll on I-95 would cost her $1,200 a year. That's reason alone not to want to live and work in Johnston County.

Of course, Mrs. Bailey-Taylor and other Johnston commuters could take U.S. 301, which they would probably do before paying $1,200 a year to drive to and from work. But 301, mostly a two-lane road, is ill-equipped for a substantial increase in traffic.

A toll on I-95 also strikes us as arbitrary, both for commuters and tourists. Which is to say that a family headed from Raleigh to Wrightsville Beach on I-40 could get there without paying tolls. A family headed from Richmond, Va., to Myrtle Beach, S.C., could not. Likewise, a commuter traveling from Benson to Smithfield would have to pay a toll. A commuter traveling from Benson to Clayton would not.

Finally, what about the tax disparity between users of toll roads and other highways? A motorist gassing up at the North Carolina-Virginia border would pay state and federal taxes on the gasoline. He'd pay tolls as he traveled south on I-95. A motorist filling up in Raleigh would pay the same state and federal taxes. But he'd pay no tolls on his way to Wrightsville. Is that fair?