Skip to main content

Could the NCTA be absorbed by NCDOT?

Well, a North Carolina State House measure may just do that. By 113-4 margin the NC State House approved a merger of the two agencies. A similar measure was ok'd by the State Senate when they approved their version of the state budget.

The merger is seen as a cost saving move in a state that faces an approximate $1.6 billion shortfall. However, it is unknown how much of a savings the merger of the two agencies would provide.

If the measure remains in the budget, the NCTA would report to the sitting NC Secretary of Transportation. However, the NCTA would continue working on toll projects throughout the state and any funding for the toll projects would not be impacted.

Story:
DOT to take over Turnpike Authority ---The Daily Advance

Commentary:
Not even five years after it was created as a separate entity - could this be the end of the NCTA? Of course, its projects would go on - but the agency would be under the supervision of the DOT.

I don't have an issue with the NCTA going under the responsibilities of NCDOT - but considering the multitude of errors made by NCDOT in this decade - will there actually be any efficiencies gained from this?

And finally, though it is said currently that none of the NCTA funding for their various projects would change as a result of the merger - the article is specific to the Mid-Currituck Bridge - I just don't see that happening as long as the state is in the red.

Comments

Anonymous said…
This was the plan all the time. This allowed the poorly planned toll projects which were in the TIP for the late 2020's jump to the head of the line and gobble up the funding for all the other local projects and even take the money that had been illegally transferred from the Highway Trust Fund for the "gaps". Most of the original toll projects were low balled in cost to get the TPA started. Once the TPA was formed all of them grew in cost astronmically. Cape Fear Skyway was originally on the TIP for around 2030 and is a great example. Its estimated cost in 2004 was $350 million. It is now in 2009 listed between $1.1 and $1.5 billion. If the past is any indication that means $1.5 billion. "Gap" is now bigger than the cost of the bridge. But guess what, it is now the number one project on the WMPO TIP. If that is not bad enough now the TPA wants to toll a project that was never under their mandate from the legislature as a toll project, namely, the I-140 bypass of Wilmington. The I-140 bypass is funded in the TIP without tolls, so why should it be tolled to pay for another project that doesn't justify its existence financially. Current estimates are that tolls will only pay about 40% of the cost fo the bridge. Does that qualify as truly needed? Could there be other alternatives that would work just as well and be much less expensive?

Popular posts from this blog

I-40 rockslide uncovers old debates on highway

The Asheville Citizen-Times continues to do a great job covering all the angles of the Interstate 40 Haywood County rock slide. An article in Sunday's edition provides a strong historical perspective on how the Pigeon River routing of Interstate 40 came about. And perhaps most strikingly, in an article that ran just prior to the highway's opening in the fall of 1968, how engineers from both Tennessee and North Carolina warned "...that slides would probably be a major problem along the route for many years." On February 12, 1969, not long after the Interstate opened, the first rock slide that would close I-40 occurred. Like many other Interstates within North Carolina, Interstate 40 through the mountains has a history prior to formation of the Interstate Highway System and was also a heated political battle between local communities. The discussion for a road that would eventually become Interstate 40 dates back to the 1940's as the idea for interregional high

Former California State Route 41 past Bates Station

When California State Route 41 was commissioned during August 1934 it was aligned along the then existing Fresno-Yosemite Road north of the San Joaquin River.  Within the Sierra Nevada foothills of Madera County, the original highway alignment ran past Bates Station via what is now Madera County Road 209, part of eastern Road 406 and Road 207.   Bates Station was a stage station plotted during the early 1880s at what was the intersection of the Coarsegold Road and Stockton-Los Angeles Road.   The modern alignment bypassing Bates Station to the east would be reopened to traffic during late 1939.   Part 1; the history of California State Route 41 past Bates Station Bates Station was featured as one of the many 1875-1899 Madera County era towns in the May 21, 1968, Madera Tribune .  Post Office Service at Bates Station is noted to have been established on November 23, 1883 and ran continuously until October 31, 1903.  The postal name was sourced from Bates Station owner/operator George Ba

Mines Road

Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre