Newspaper flips over old toll road plan

It looks like The Wilson Daily Times is flip-flopping on its once-strongly stated contention that Interstate 95 should not become a toll road. In a Wednesday editorial, the struggling newspaper has very nearly endorsed toll booths on the interstate that cuts through Wilson County. (Typically of recent editorials, this one can't quite make up its mind one way or the other.)

That's a sharp departure from the newspaper's frequently state previous position that tolls for an interstate highway were not a good idea, and an especially bad idea for eastern North Carolina. That position reflected the opinion of most local governments along the I-95 corridor. Tolls on the interstate would make it less attractive to tourists and a real burden to local commuters.

The state's 21st Century Transportation Committee, which seems oddly mired in 19th-century thinking (tolls financed the plank roads that linked towns, such as Wilson, in the early 1800s), contends most of the tolls will be paid by motorists from out-of-state. If that sounds like a painless tax (in their broadest sense, taxes includes tolls), you're not listening to the businesses that rely on tourism dollars. Tourists provide millions of dollars in revenues to businesses at Interstate 95 interchanges and to the governments along the corridor who collect sales, income and property taxes from those businesses.

In its previous opinions, the Daily Times, agreeing with other critics of the toll plan, pointed out that Interstate 95 is in dire need of multi-million-dollar improvements precisely because state officials have ignored I-95's narrow, crowded lanes and archaic traffic designs. While Interstate 85 and Interstate 40 received billions in improvements and additional lanes, I-95, cutting through some of the state's poorest counties, was ignored. Rather than making amends for this discrimination, the 21st Century Transportation Committee proposes to punish residents and businesses along the I-95 corridor for the state's own malfeasance.

The toll road plan was raised again just as President-elect Barack Obama was proposing billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements, which could include enough money to upgrade I-95 to modern standards and widths. If used wisely, along with sensible prioritization by the state Department of Transportation, this infrastructure stimulus could fix I-95 for 21st century motorists without resorting to tolls.

The only real hope for stamping out the I-95 toll proposal, which keeps popping back up like a Hydra, is a united opposition involving all entities along the I-95 corridor and adjacent eastern North Carolina. With its new revelation that "the state would be smart to take a closer look at the toll road concept," The Wilson Daily Times has reneged on its previous strong opposition and has betrayed the interests of its readers and its advertisers.