State Department of Transportation engineers are crafting a plan to toll Interstate 95 that would allow local drivers to take short trips on the road while preventing others from dodging tolls. The department hopes to catch the one in five drivers it estimates pass through North Carolina without ever stopping. They don’t buy gas or diesel fuel, so they don’t pay the 38.9 cents tax North Carolina collects on every gallon to take care of I-95 and other highway needs. With the electronic toll collection network DOT has proposed, these drivers could end up paying even more than their share. “You have the people coming from New York to Florida that will pay for the road, and the trucks,” said Kristine O’Connor, a DOT project engineer who is overseeing the plans. The system is designed to discourage travelers from hopping on and off the interstate to avoid tolls on the long drive through the state – but it will not prevent the practice altogether. DOT’s proposal depends on winning federal permission this year to start collecting tolls on I-95 in 2019. That’s when DOT hopes to finish Phase 1 – expanding I-95 from four to eight lanes on the busy 50 miles south from I-40 to St. Pauls and six lanes on another 11 miles – and to start the rest of the work. Toll rates have not been established, but a recent DOT report suggests it might start out charging 19.2 cents a mile for cars on the section to be widened by 2019, and a much lower rate – 6.4 cents – on sections to be improved later. That would work out to a toll of $19.20 for a complete I-95 car trip from border to border, DOT said.

The details in DOT’s draft plan could change before toll collection starts, O’Connor said. The current plan calls for placing overhead toll collection sensors at nine locations on I-95, about every 20 miles from the border. Drivers who carry toll transponders will be charged a 20-mile toll each time they pass beneath the I-95 sensors. For vehicles without transponders, cameras will record license numbers and the owners will be billed by mail, at a higher toll rate. The easiest way to avoid tolls would be to exit I-95 just before reaching the overhead sensors, then drive a few miles on nearby U.S. 301, and return to I-95 at the next interchange. But at the exits closest to each set of overhead sensors, DOT plans to install the same technology. A car taking that last off-ramp from I-95 before the toll sensor will be charged for a 10-mile toll, and a car entering at the next on-ramp also will be charged for 10 miles. Meanwhile, at other exits – all exits except the ones closest to the I-95 sensors – drivers would be able to get on and off the interstate without having to pay. “You could go from Dunn to I-40 and Raleigh and not be tolled,” said Dunn Mayor Oscar N. Harris. “So that is a lot of our driving around here. But if you want to drive to Fayetteville, you would be tolled.

Crystal Collins, president of the Raleigh-based N.C. Trucking Association, attended a DOT hearing in Lumberton and told O’Connor that her group opposes the toll proposal. “We oppose tolls on existing roads,” Collins said in an interview. “We’re already paying taxes to have the roads we have today maintained. You’re paying for it again.” A DOT study estimates that 20 to 25 percent of I-95 drivers will find other roads, to avoid the tolls. But the state figures it still can collect enough money to pay for the construction, if tolls are collected for about 40 years.

(Bruce Siceloff, THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 2/12/12).

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