File this under the category of not surprising if you’ve been paying attending, which the UPoR apparently hasn’t been: The proposed high occupancy toll lanes on Interstate 77 from I-77 from the Brookshire Freeway in Charlotte to Exit 33 or Exit 36 won’t bring in enough toll money to may for the roadwork. The Department of Transportation will have to kick in somewhere between $26 million and $100 million to make up the difference.
The reality is that virtually all toll roads proposed in North Carolina don’t pay for themselves. The question is just how much help they need. And by that measure, the I-77 project is cheap: the proposed Garden Porkway needs $35 million a year for 30 to 35 years to close the difference between what tolls will bring in and what the road costs.
The UPoR completes misses the real story on the I-77 HOT proposal though: it involves converting one of the three free lanes in each direction (plus the current HOV lane) into an HOT lane for part of the project’s length.
