Triangle Expressway toll fees set to increase in January
(Triangle Business Journal – December 22, 2016)
Drivers will soon be paying more for a trip down the Triangle Expressway – but in return, new interchanges aim to make Triangle commutes even easier.
That’s the hope of officials who say that in terms of usage, the highway, which opened in 2012, is already exceeding expectations.
One of the two new interchanges will be located at Old Holly Springs-Apex Road early next year. The other is planned for Morrisville Parkway in 2019.
Those additions will make an already “critical” highway an even bigger deal to the Triangle and the state, says Joe Milazzo, executive director of the Regional Transportation Alliance.
The road was designed to reduce traffic congestion coming in and out of Research Triangle Park. And the math is working, says Milazzo.
Numbers released by the RTA at its December mobility presentation show the Triangle Expressway continually beating projections. According to RTA, the expressway was projected to earn $17.6 million, $23.7 million and $28.8 million in fiscal 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively. The actual revenue numbers were $19.7 million in fiscal 2014, $29 million in fiscal 2015 and a whopping $36.3 million in 2016. In the 2016 fiscal year alone, 42.5 million transactions were processed, beating the 38.7 million that had been projected, according to the RTA presentation.
Milazzo calls the Triangle Expressway the “largest infrastructure project in state history,” and among North Carolina’s biggest transportation success stories. “It’s the first modern toll road in the state,” he says. “It is an essential connector to several of the fastest growing communities in our region.”