Triangle drivers get ready to roll down NC's first toll road

By: Steve Sbraccia | NBC-17
Published: December 06, 2011

RALEIGH, N.C. --

Officials are getting ready to open the Triangle Parkway, the state's first toll road, which will connect NC 147 between Interstate 40 and Interstate 540.

Motorists can start using it on Dec. 8.

That new stretch of the highway will be free until Jan. 3 and then it is going to become a toll road.

Although there was a lot of controversy about creating toll roads for it on I-540, many drivers are taking fees in stride.

"I’m from New York,” said driver Mark Evans. “I’m used to paying tolls.”

The same goes for driver Ian Boyd who is from Chicago and says he's "used to paying for everything.”

But those tolls do upset driver Eric Williams.

“It gives me a bad feeling in my gut,” he explained. “I just won’t use the road.”

When the new highway opens, the toll collections will be electronic, which means cameras above the road will snap license plate photos to bill people by mail, if they don’t have a transponder.

Evans says he’ll buy a transponder “as long as it’s that easy and convenient and we can do it online, and the prices are reasonable.”

Currently, NCDOT officials say about 3,900 transponders have been sold. Those with a transponder will get a discount on the toll, where as those without the device will pay a higher rate. Tolls will be 15 cents a mile for those with transponders and 21 cents a mile if the state bills you by mail.

And that higher rate may be acceptable to the occasional user like David Hargrove.

“I‘d probably use it if I have to; it all depends on which way I’m going and how the traffic is,” explained Hargrove.

And it’s traffic nightmares which bother Hargrove and other drivers.

Hargrove’s hoping now that they’ve built it, it’ll be the highway to heaven or at least to traffic heaven.

“I hope it helps the traffic because the traffic now is really a cluster,” he declared. “It’s really getting bad.”

Officials hope once the Triangle Parkway and the rest of the Triangle Expressway opens that it’ll siphon a lot of the traffic off the local roads, and that is just what commuter Eric Williams wants.

“I’ll be using the alternate routes,” said Williams. “I travel the road all the time and I don’t think I’ll start paying for something I use every day.”