For whom the bellwether solution is toll
The regional business community recognizes that continued improvements in major travel corridors is essential for our market’s growth.
Our 2027 RTA business plan specifically includes the US 1 north/Capital freeway, I-40, and US 70/junior freeway corridors as prime focuses for targeted investment, and those will continue to be priorities for our organization.
At our quarterly RTA Regional Leadership Team meeting, held earlier this week at Duke Energy offices in southern Wake County, we devoted a significant portion of the meeting on a discussion of various potential toll corridors, as well as complementary policies, to accelerate improvements.
The RTA Regional Leadership Team endorsed a series of corridors for consideration of targeted toll revenue options by our region’s metropolitan transportation planning organizations, NC Turnpike Authority, and NCDOT. Example toll options to consider for accelerating relief for a given corridor might include a new or upgraded roadway, toll lanes or shoulders, part-time tolling, etc. The corridors included both I-40 and US 70, as well as I-540 and I-87, and potentially portions of US 15-501 (as part of a freeway upgrade) and I-885. For any potential freeway corridor, the key is to provide choice to travelers as to whether or not to use a toll lane or shoulder, or a toll roadway, for a reliable trip.
There is no death of candidate projects, and my sense is the “best” one might be the one that can be implemented quickly and provide relief quickly — although I believe our region could pursue multiple corridors at once, just like we are doing with BRT across our market.
The conversation also highlighted the opportunity to improve multimodal mobility within a broader corridor envelope or parallel roadway through the use of targeted toll revenue along a corridor. To that point, the Leadership Team discussed and endorsed a potential legislative change to support the use of transit along existing and future turnpike freeways: providing free passage on toll roads for publicly-owned and managed transit buses, shuttles, and vanpools. RTA will seek legislative action to help support this aspect of multimodal mobility during an upcoming legislative session.
As we conclude 2026 and look forward to 2027, we are committed to shining a spotlight on both the urgency and opportunity to accelerate meaningful improvements on vital regional roadways by considering toll revenue solutions. As we have seen with NC 540 in southern, western, and eastern Wake County, and in southeastern Durham County with NC 885, targeted toll revenue can provide accelerated improvements — which means faster choices and quicker relief.
In addition, RTA will examine broader state revenue solutions, as discussed during last week’s briefing, and posted here.
We appreciate your membership and partnership.
Let’s get moving,
Joe
Joe Milazzo II, PE
RTA Executive Director
