The UPoR is reporting that the Mecklenburg County Republican Party has come against using tolls to help fund the widening of Interstate 77 in northern part of the county. Good for them.
There really is little reason to proceed with the road currently as a toll project. State road policy is under review, and the role of toll roads going forward is uncertain. Traditionally, toll roads were the way powerful legislators could get big-buck projects of often questionable worth built sooner rather than later (see: The Garden Porkway.) In recent years, toll roads have become what state officials push on communities when they claimed that there wasn’t enough money to built a road otherwise anytime soon. In one such case though (the I-85 bridge over the Yadkin River), money was found. So it’s understandable why residents might feel that they are being slighted by the state.
While tolls may ultimately prove to be the answer for I-77, a little delay will if nothing else allow the McCrory Administration to develop a (hopefully) better state transportation policy including a more coherent justification for using tolls.
