House Republicans say there should be no more free rides on state ferries.

The budget proposal released Tuesday by GOP House leaders would require the state Ferry Division to collect tolls on all ferries that are free now and to charge higher rates on ferries where riders already pay – enough to increase toll collections by $2.5 million next year and $5 million the year after.

The Ferry Division would determine the new rates for individual trips and for multiple-trip passes.  No decisions have been made, but state Department of Transportation officials have said they would consider a $10 toll on North Carolina’s busiest ferry – the 40-minute ride from Hatteras to Ocracoke, now free – and a doubling of the $15 toll collected on the longer Pamlico Sound ferries that link Ocracoke to the mainland at Cedar Island and Swan Quarter.

The budget proposal also would cut jobs elsewhere in DOT and in the Highway Patrol, and it would subject state rail programs to special new layers of legislative oversight.

It would authorize local schools to charge new fees for driver education classes, up to $75 per student, to make up for an $8.7 million cut in state funding. ... [MORE]

A Republican push to reject $461 million in federal railroad improvement grants for North Carolina appears to have collapsed. [4/10/11 update: more details in today's story.]

The high-speed rail kill bill championed by state Rep. Ric Killian of Charlotte was pulled Friday from the agenda of the House Transportation Committee, which had been scheduled to vote on the measure next week. Killian's bill was attacked at this week's committee meeting by Democrats, mayors and business advocates.

The Charlotte Business Journal reports that another Mecklenburg County Republican, Sen. Bob Rucho of Matthews, said at a Charlotte business meeting Friday that GOP leaders agreed that North Carolina should keep the $545 million in high-speed and intercity passenger rail grants awarded in early 2010 by the Obama administration. ... [MORE]

As a House committee prepares today to debate a Republican proposal to have the Perdue administration return $461 million in rail stimulus funds to Washington, Perdue's Department of Transportation is asking Washington for $624 million more. [4/6/11 update: see today's story with reader comments.]

North Carolina would use the new funds to:

- replace outmoded train stations in Charlotte and Raleigh,
- build new ones in Hillsborough and Lexington,
- add more freight and passenger service between Raleigh and Charlotte,
- complete the environmental studies and purchase an abandoned CSX rail corridor for a new high-speed shortcut from Raleigh to Richmond, for trains that would travel at speeds up to 110mph, and
- make rail safety improvements between Raleigh and Charlotte.

The new application (documents attached below) seeks a share of $2.4 billion in funds that became available after Florida's governor killed a high-speed rail project between Tampa and Orlando, and sent the money back.

The application was filed as the House Transportation Committee prepared today to debate a bill by Rep. Ric Killian and 12 other House Republicans to kill North Carolina's high-speed rail program, and to join Ohio and Florida in sending the money back to Washington. ... [MORE]

Rep. Ric Killian of Charlotte is not alone in pushing legislation to kill federally funded railroad projects worth tens of millions of dollars in his home county.

Killian has signed up a dozen fellow Republicans to help sponsor a bill that would have the state Department of Transportation give back $461 million in federal railroad improvement funds, and bar it from seeking federal high-speed rail money for any project that has not been approved by the legislature.

The $461 million includes money that would be spent in counties represented by Killian and four of his co-sponsors from Cabarrus, Rowan and Davidson counties. [3/30/11 update: see today's story from a House committee meeting.]

The House Transportation Committee will consider Killian's kill bill today. ... [MORE]

Mecklenburg County will receive the lion’s share of $461 million in federal railroad funds -- unless one of its legislators, Rep. Ric Killian of Charlotte, succeeds in his campaign to kill the deal.

NCDOT provided a county-by-county breakdown of rail projects worth $520 million. It combines the $461 million in ARRA (stimulus) funds committed by the Federal Railroad Administration this week, plus $59 million North Carolina received previously.

Mecklenburg gets projects worth nearly $152 million, and it shares a $92 million project with neighboring Cabarrus County.  (Killian contends, below, that Charlotte folks would suffer more than anyone else in the state because of this federal investment.)

ARRA Funding for Projects Covered by Agreement by County

Alamance   $11,703,156
Cabarrus   $344,715
Davidson   $44,545,437
Davidson and Rowan*   $1,444,659
Durham    $18,130,644
Guilford   $13,925,453
Cabarrus and Mecklenburg*   $92,116,212
Mecklenburg    $151,711,401
Rowan   $98,657,349
Wake   $47,822,797
Wake, Durham, Alamance, Guilford, Davidson, Rowan, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg   $39,598,176
Total:   $520,000,000
* Projects crossing county lines

Double tracks, straightened curves and other improvements will qualify tracks for a top speed boost from the current 79 mph to 90 mph a few years from now, after the railroads install positive-train control safety technology.

The biggest single project, in Charlotte, involves $128 million to grade-separate CSX and Norfolk Southern tracks that now meet in a four-way stop.  The work will send CSX trains burrowing beneath Norfolk Southern tracks. It will prepare the way for Charlotte's next big transportation project: a multimodal station downtown for Amtrak and local transit trains and buses.

Killian contends that the deal will saddle North Carolina taxpayers with future operation and maintenance costs as high as $50 million a year. 

In an interview this week I asked him whether the federal funding he wants to kill would benefit his constituents in Charlotte.

"My concern is for the citizens of this state," he replied. 

Asked again about whether Charlotte in particular would benefit, Killian said:

I think the answer probably could be no, knowing the citizens of Charlotte pay such a great amount of taxes. And any potential liability is going to be borne by the taxpayers; therefore, I think it could hurt the citizens of Charlotte even more than other areas of the state.

The House Transportation Committee is expected to take up Killian's kill bill next week.

As the administration of Democrat Gov. Bev Perdue prepares to start spending $461 million in federal fast-train grants (see today’s story with reader comments),  Republicans in the General Assembly want North Carolina to give the money back. All of it. [1:20pm update: See announcement from USDOT secretary and (3:20 p.m.) NCDOT.]

Reps. Ric Killian of Charlotte and Phillip Frye of Spruce Pine, Republican co-chairs of a House subcommittee that oversees transportation spending, filed legislation Monday that would order Perdue’s Department of Transportation not to ..

apply for, accept, or expend any grant funding from the federal government for any high-speed rail project unless the project has been approved through an act of the General Assembly.

DOT would face penalties, losing Highway Fund money, if it disobeys the ban.

The Federal Railroad Administration is expected in the next day or so to formally commit $461 million in federal stimulus grants -- so NCDOT can start accepting bids -- for 24 projects to build more tracks and bridges and make other rail improvements between Raleigh and Charlotte. ... [MORE]

In 2007 when gas prices were climbing this high, this fast, the General Assembly put a cap on the state tax paid on every gallon, to stop it from rising above 29.9 cents.  Then in 2009 this tax ceiling was converted to a floor, a tax minimum -- and since then the tax rate has risen to 32.5 cents.

Now there's legislation to convert the current rate to a ceiling again, to keep the tax from rising further. Republican Reps. Pat McElraft of Emerald Isle, Mike Stone of Sanford, Ric Killian of Charlotte and Mike Hager of Rutherfordton introduced House Bill 399 this week.

It would put a 15-cent cap on the variable portion of the tax rate, which is readjusted every six months as a percentage of the changing wholesale gas price. ... [MORE]

In their proposal today for LESS state spending -- more than $2 billion less than Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue's proposed budget -- Republican legislative leaders mention one area that deserves MORE spending: highway maintenance and repaving.

Instructions to the House and Senate transportation appropriation subcommittees (attached below) include this call for a $100 million maintenance boost:

Strengthen the maintenance of transportation infrastructure. For many years, North Carolina has inadequately funded the maintenance of pavement, bridges, and other transportation infrastructure. Please develop a plan to increase the budget for maintenance and contract resurfacing by at least $100 million through a combination of savings, efficiencies and the reallocation of resources.

Perdue also has recommended more maintenance spending this year. ... [more]

Market forces will push North Carolina's record-high gas tax even higher in July --  unless political forces decide otherwise. 

Democrats were in charge four years ago when drivers were unhappy about rising gas taxes, so they capped the tax for two years at 29.9 cents a gallon.  That ceiling was converted to a legislative floor in 2009, and our inflation-adjusting tax has risen since then to an all-time high of 32.5 cents.

The General Assembly’s new Republican leaders seem likely to put a lid on it again.

“They have not specifically talked about this in caucus,” says Ray Martin, press secretary for Republican Sen. Phil Berger, the Senate president pro tem. “But it’s likely they’d want to look at capping any increase in the tax.” ... [MORE]

The state Department of Transportation’s proposed budget shows that the Perdue administration is counting on the Republican-led legislature to allow gas taxes to keep rising this year.  But without lifting a finger, Republicans have the power to let gas tax rates fall sharply instead.

[2/18/11 correction:  Legislative action would be required to prevent gas tax rates from rising again in July. See below.]

The variable tax rate fluctuates as a portion of the average wholesale gas price, and in January it climbed to a record high level of 32.5 cents a gallon.  Perdue’s budget, released today (see below), projects an increase of another penny a gallon, to generate record-high gas tax collections of $1.74 billion in 2011-12.

[2/18/11 correction:  That assumes the Republican-led legislature will allow the tax to keep rising. A GOP legislative spokesman says that seems unlikely.] ... [MORE]