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Smart Roads Coming to the Carolinas but I'm Fine With the Dumb Ones.

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Jonathan and Associates, Inc

The call it a smart road or the road of the future.  I call it a scary waste of money.  In 2003, London England instituted the first congestion charge, which is a fee for driving a non-hybrid / electric car into certain parts of the city.  The fee is approximately $16 a day but it varies based on vehicle class, use, etc.  We've all been on a toll road before but I would guess that many have not ventured to a place which charged you $16 for just driving around.  Here in the Carolinas, we may see something very similar. 

Click Here to Watch the Video of the Toll Road in Action

As a way to pay for the new Monroe Bypass, a road to help ease congestion on HWY 74, the turnpike authority is proposing making it a new smart toll road.  Most toll roads have an entrance at the beginning with a booth that bottle necks traffic and one at the end to do the same.  Also, there's usually a lane for users of electronic tags (we had EZPass in Maryland) which would deduct the amount required right from your bank account.  The amount is always the same so if you were towing a trailer behind your pickup, you would have to to hit the booth to pay for the additional axles. 

Here in North Carolina, they are proposing a toll road unlike what is common to America.  This more advanced road toll system would deduct for every mile or so traveled, would be able to recognize the type of vehicle, and if you did not have a pass, it would search the DMV database to send you a bill.  This is very similar to London's system.  I'm sure that with the same technology, they could also catch you speeding and if they wanted to, they could set billing based on what you are driving. 

Here in Charlotte, we've already been down the road with red light cameras and it didn't go so well.  Currently, there are dozens of cameras that are no longer in use since the revenue from the cameras never went where they were suppose to go.  North Carolina doesn't even have a toll road anywhere in the state.  What's to say that the money from these smart roads are going to go where it should and have you ever seen a toll lifted from a toll road. 

We're paying an obscene amount of money in gasoline taxes which should be adequate to pay for roads yet we are being told that we need to pay even more.  Let's apply this logic to public safety.  What if when you called 911 because your house was on fire or your neighbors home was being robbed, they gave you two options: arrive in 5 minutes for $50 or arrive in 15 - 60 minutes for free.  There would be justified public outrage and those in power would be thrown out of office.  So why is it different for our roads? 

Jonathan Osman
Charlotte NC Homes, Charlotte Real Estate  

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