news-record.com

RALEIGH (MCT) — North Carolina began building its first modern toll road Wednesday. It won't be the last.

The $1.01 billion Triangle Expressway will serve Research Triangle Park commuters and other drivers who are so fed up with rush-hour congestion on N.C. 55 and Interstate 40 that they're ready to pay for a quicker ride to work.

Because gas tax collections have dwindled as road costs and traffic counts rise, North Carolina is turning to tolls to finance high-dollar, high-demand bridge and expressway projects that can draw paying customers.

State and local planners say tolls will be needed to finish building the southern half of Raleigh's 540 Outer Loop — and, eventually, to widen the Loop's northern arc.

A dozen dignitaries tossed red-dirt clumps from gold-painted shovels Wednesday in the TriEx groundbreaking on the grassy west end of the 540 Outer Loop. The six-lane expressway will be extended north through RTP to I-40 and south to Holly Springs.

Elected officials agreed to make the TriEx a toll road in 2005, after the state epartment of Transportation squelched hopes for a tax-paid, toll-free Outer Loop extension through western Wake County.

TriEx travelers will start paying tolls electronically — there will be no cash collected — in late 2011, when the first 6.2-mile section opens for business in RTP. The remaining stretch from RTP to Holly Springs is expected to open in late 2012.

The N.C. Turnpike Authority borrowed $1.01 billion in bonds and a federal loan to build and operate the TriEx. State law says that when the debt is paid off, somewhere around 2043, TriEx will become toll-free.

The turnpike agency is moving ahead with other toll road and bridge projects across the state. Construction is expected to start in 2010 for a toll alternative to U.S. 74 east of Charlotte, and a toll bridge that could cut two hours from weekend beach trips for visitors to the Currituck County Outer Banks.

"We're not going to implement toll roads all over North Carolina in the next five years," said Gene Conti, the state transportation secretary. "But we do think it makes a lot of sense in areas where we have high congestion or we have folks with the ability to pay, like out on the Mid-Currituck Bridge."

The TriEx project is the most expensive public works job in state history.

The agency will pay landowners an estimated $230 million, most of it in the next six months, to buy the remaining 525 acres needed for right of way. In the next two weeks, turnpike officials expect to start making offers to landowners and to start building the first TriEx bridge over Burden's Creek in RTP.

The project will support an estimated 13,800 construction-related jobs over the next 2 months. After it is open for business, the TriEx will employ about 55 people to collect the tolls and maintain the road.