The road ahead: population growth is forcing fresh looks at how to keep traffic moving in urban markets, sparking debates over tolls and mass transit--and little consensus on how to pay for it.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: The Future of North Carolina: TRANSPORTATION

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Finally, they've reached here, a few miles outside Windsor. On damp mornings like this, mist rises from the Cashie River where earthmovers are pushing the new Interstate 44 through soybean fields toward Elizabeth City. Eleven years ago, in 2015, Pat McCrory, then governor, described this as one of his transportation priorities, to connect a neglected region of the state to Raleigh in the west and to carry its abundant raw goods such as forest and agricultural products northeast to the global ports of the Virginia Tidewater area.

Elsewhere, transportation in 2026 has a radically different, urban hue. Thousands ride newly completed segments of a commuter train, whose 37-mile route from Garner through Raleigh to Durham was part of a $2.3 billion regional transit plan advanced by local leaders in 2016. In Charlotte, which launched the state's first commuter-rail system in 1998, riders ply a network that spans Mecklenburg County from neighboring Iredell and Cabarrus counties.

Those hypotheticals are reality-based, but probably too rosy, say experts such as N.C. Secretary of Transportation Nick Tennyson. "It's possible," he says, that the Research Triangle might have commuter trains in a decade, "but from my experiences working with railroads, that would be lightning speed." Nevertheless, from Asheville to Ocracoke, North Carolina is coming to grips with its transportation future and pouring billions into highway construction, transit systems, ports, regional airports and other features. The question in 2026 will be, was it too little, too late?

"If we look at where we're headed right now, we're going to be drowning in traffic, endless congestion and extremely frustrated people," says Michael Gallis, whose Charlotte-based firm, Michael Gallis & Associates, has completed transportation and urban-development plans in the United States and Canada.

Gallis blames public reluctance to pay for transportation, along with timid politicians unwilling to impose unpopular measures such as tolls and user fees. The state should consider transportation a utility-like service and fund it from general coffers instead of transportation-specific sources such as gas taxes, he says. "Twenty years ago, the world came to America to see what we had. Nobody comes anymore. Our airports, high-speed rail, interstate system are all vastly out of date."

State officials don't minimize 2026's challenges. "Anybody who's close to all this has got to be concerned," says Ned Curran, a Charlotte developer who chairs the N.C. Board of Transportation. "We can't just keep building highways forever." Still, highway construction and maintenance will continue to dominate transportation spending, though alternatives such as passenger rail will gain traction. About three-quarters of the state's $4.4 billion 2015 transportation budget went to roads and maintenance. "The problem is, we have concentrated demand for limited infrastructure," Curran says. In layman's terms, that's rush-hour traffic. "It's hard to keep up, and unfortunately, we haven't. I don't see any miracle cure in the next 10 years that'll bring us up to speed."

Powering the 2026 transportation treadmill will be more people and the state's expansion as a financial-industry center and powerhouse of high technology and skilled manufacturing, including trains and planes. Wilmington's Vertex Railcar Corp., for instance, expects to produce 8,000 rail cars this year, and Tennyson cites Honda Aircraft Co.'s new, 1,700-employee Greensboro plant--it's part of a flourishing, 6,000-worker Triad aviation industry--where it makes the compact $4.8 million Hondajet.

Most of all, future transportation needs reflect population growth. The N.C. Office of State Budget and Management estimates 11.2 million people will live in the state in 2026, up from 10.6 million in late 2015. A recent Wake County transit plan notes that 63 new residents arrive there daily. The plan concluded, "congestion of our roads is worsening, even as additional money is spent" to expand them.

Current efforts to keep pace financially are flagging. Last summer, lawmakers stripped about $1 billion that McCrory sought for highway projects in a statewide bond referendum. Despite generally...