Beach driving is sharply restricted this year at Cape Hatteras National Seashore (see 7/15/12 story with reader comments), and park rangers continue to count the apparent benefits for sea turtles that build their nests in the Outer Banks sand.

Loggerheads, a few greens and a Kemp's ridley have buried their eggs in 186 nests so far this year along the 65-mile shoreline, according to this running count at seaturtle.org. That's 32 more than the National Park Service reported on July 11, when they broke their record of 153 sea turtle nests in a single year. (Records go back to 1970, when the annual counts began.)

Beach drivers have a nightly curfew of 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. on the beaches where they are still allowed -- instead of the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. limit that was in place before this year.  That means two more hours each night without engine noise and headlights to distract female turtles that drag themselves out of the surf in the dark. ... [MORE]

View Triangle Expressway in a larger map

The first 3.4-mile leg of Triangle Expressway that opened in January (red on the map) is a little thing that doesn't matter much by itself. But the Triangle's first toll road will become relevant to a great many shoppers, delivery truck drivers, commuters and other motorists when the next two sections of TriEx open this year -- extending the 540 Outer Loop south to U.S. 64 at Apex starting Aug. 1 (blue) and farther south to N.C. 55 at Holly Springs (purple) in December -- for a total 18.8 miles.

I'll be reporting on this over the next couple of weeks as the second leg opens. Local drivers have asked questions:
  * What will the tolls be?
  * When can we start using E-ZPass transponders here?
  * Why must drivers start paying tolls Aug. 2 on a section of 540 (green on the map) that has been toll-free since it opened in 2007?

What else do you want to know?  Please email me your TriEx questions.  Don't forget to include your name and your daytime phone number.

View I-40 Bus on Shoulder System in a larger map

Interstate 40 commuters should not be surprised next week to see the occasional Triangle Transit bus rolling past them on the freeway shoulder  - while cars and trucks are stuck in the latest traffic jam.

North Carolina's "bus-on-shoulder" pilot program gets under way Monday on I-40 in Durham County. It will give bus riders a new advantage over other commuters.

Whenever the traffic stops or crawls as slowly as 35mph, transit bus drivers will have the option to drive slowly on the shoulder -- something that will continue to be illegal for other vehicles.  Bus drivers will be allowed on the shoulder to drive no faster than 35mph, and no more than 15mph faster than I-40 traffic. ... [MORE]

View Triangle Expressway in a larger map

The second leg of the Triangle Expressway will open Aug. 2, extending the state's first modern toll road south from Research Triangle Park to U.S. 64 in western Wake County.

At the same time, an existing leg of the 540 Outer Loop will lose its toll-free status. (7/10/12 update: See today's Road Worrier column with reader comments and TriEx toll rates.)

I'll be reporting on this Monday.  Do you expect to drive on this new leg of TriEx?  If so, I would like to hear from you.  Please email me with your name and workday contact info, so I can catch up with you on Monday.

The first leg of TriEx opened in January (red on the attached map), extending NC 147 south from Interstate 40 through Research Triangle Park to the 540 Outer Loop.

The second new leg (blue on the map) will extend the 540 Outer Loop south from N.C. 55 to U.S. 64 in Apex.  The third leg (purple on the map), now under construction, opens in December.  It will reach farther south to N.C. 55 at Holly Springs.  Off ramps are marked on this map with yellow icons.

Also in August, the N.C. Turnpike Authority will start collecting tolls on an established section of NC 540 (green on the map) between N.C. 54 and N.C. 55.  This road was built separately, but state and federal officials agreed to make it part of the toll road as a means of connecting what otherwise would be two separate tollroads:  Triangle Parkway through RTP (red) and the road once known as the Western Wake Expressway (blue and purple).

Many RTP commuters who squeeze through Apex on NC 55 every morning will welcome TriEx as an Apex bypass.

Since the House spurned a Senate proposal to put strict controls on the science of predicting how fast the seas will rise along North Carolina's coast, legislators have been working on a compromise. They are preparing next week to consider a gentler but more complicated approach toward the same goal: slow down that scary forecast.

The state Coastal Resources Commission would be required to wait four years, until July 2016, before it authorizes any sea-level forecast to be used as the basis for coastal regulations, according to legislation worked out this week by a House-Senate conference committee.  Scientists would be required to consider a sweeping range of views, including predictions that the sea level will fall, as they develop North Carolina's forecast.

It was the Coastal Resources Commission that asked a panel of scientists for a prediction that caused alarm among coastal economic development interests.  In 2010, the panel urged North Carolina to prepared for a 39-inch rise in the sea level by 2100. (See CRC information page on sea-level rise.) Senate leaders and a coastal group called NC-20 favor a more conservative forecast -- 8 inches -- which is a straight-line projection of the slow rise that has been charted over the past half century. ... [MORE]

A budget corrections bill being heard this morning in the House Appropriations Committee includes a provision to postpone the ferry toll hikes originally scheduled, in the state budget bill adopted last week, to start in the fiscal year that begins July 1. (4pm update: The committee approved the changes. Now they go to the House floor, then the Senate.)

Instead, the increased rates for three routes now tolled and the new tolls for routes now toll-free would not begin until fiscal year 2014 (which starts in July 2013). The measure also would appropriate an extra $2.5 million for the DOT Ferry Division, to make up for the revenue that had been expected from the increased ferry tolls.

If the House and Senate approve this latest change in ferry toll rates and timing, it will move back to the original position favored by the House and Gov. Bev Perdue. They agreed this spring to postpone the tolls out of concern for economic hardship in ferry-dependent coastal communities. In the budget passed last week, the legislature had granted a one-year reprieve only for riders on the toll-free Cherry Branch ferry.

As its vehicle for budget corrections, the House used Senate Bill 187, a proposal to outlaw the red-light camera traffic enforcement programs in Raleigh, Cary, Knightdale and Willmington.  Red-light cameras are not mentioned in the revised bill moving through House Appropriations this morning, so the traffic programs will not face elimination.

Senate members made another attempt Tuesday to roll back the inspection requirements for some cars, this time with a bill to end emissions inspections for newer cars.

The Senate Rules Committee discussed a proposal to end the required emissions checks for cars from the three most recent model years, and for older cars with no more than 80,000 miles on the odometer. Safety inspections would not be affected.

"On the new cars you have very, very few emissions problems," said Sen. Harry Brown, a Jacksonville Republican.

The proposal, part of a recommended rewrite of a House-approved bill (H585), was amended to make 70,000 the odometer number.  The committee postponed voting on it after questions were raised about another section of the bill not related to inspections.

Efforts by Brown and other legislators to curtail inspection requirements have been defeated repeatedly in recent years, with committee votes that have prevented the issue from being discussed on the House and Senate floors.  In May, after legislators were lobbied heavily by garage owners who make money inspecting cars, a joint House-Senate transportation oversight committee killed a proposal to end safety and emissions inspections for newer cars.

Maybe it wasn't head-strong bicyclists who started that little dust-up on Dairyland Road between the two-wheelers and a DOT paving contractor. Maybe, Orange County bike rider Ivan Bachelder says, it was the contractor's fault.

As the Road Worrier reported today (see column with reader comments), DOT is repaving the rural Orange County road, extremely popular with bike riders, and adding 24-inch paved shoulders on both sides. There were alarms when the paving contractor pilot truck found itself meeting cyclists head-on.

DOT and others said the cyclists had ignored a flagger's request to stop, and had decided to go.

But at least in some cases, Bachelder said by email, the pilot vehicle drove too fast and the cyclists fell behind. Then, when making a return trip, the pilot truck met the cyclists head-on: ... [MORE]

Because he is an attorney for two Wake County drivers in a lawsuit over Cary's red-light camera program, Rep. Paul Stam of Apex says he will not take part when the House takes up a Senate proposal to get rid of red-light cameras in Cary and the other three cities that use them.

Responding to a Dome item published Sunday that mentioned the lawsuit and the legislation together, Stam took issue with the headline (used in the print edition only): "A two-pronged attack on red-light cameras."

The headline incorrectly suggests a connection between the Cary lawsuit and the Senate bill, Stam said Monday by email:

My representation began in 2009. In 2010 I excused myself from consideration of a bill involving cameras at red lights. I will excuse myself from any involvement in the 2011 bill when I am first able to do so. That has not happened yet. I have taken no part at all in advancing or opposing the senate bill. I know that editors write the headlines but they changed a true story into one that implies something less than true.

He enclosed a copy of a House document (attached below) showing that Stam had excused himself from voting on a different House bill involving red-light cameras, citing his clients' case.

Documents:

As state Rep. Pat McElraft prepares this week to unveil compromise language on a bill to slow down the science of sea-level forecasting in North Carolina, a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey finds that the rate of sea-level rise is increasing several times faster on the northern Atlantic Coast -- from Boston to Cape Hatteras -- than around the world as a whole (6/25/12 update: see today's story with reader comments).

In a news release issued Sunday, the USGS said:

Rates of sea level rise are increasing three-to-four times faster along portions of the U.S. Atlantic Coast than globally, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey report published in Nature Climate Change.

Since about 1990, sea-level rise in the 600-mile stretch of coastal zone from Cape Hatteras, N.C. to north of Boston, Mass. -- coined a “hotspot” by scientists -- has increased 2 - 3.7 millimeters per year; the global increase over the same period was 0.6 – 1.0 millimeter per year.

Based on data and analyses included in the report, if global temperatures continue to rise, rates of sea level rise in this area are expected to continue increasing.  

The report shows that the sea-level rise hotspot is consistent with the slowing of Atlantic Ocean circulation. Models show this change in circulation may be tied to changes in water temperature, salinity and density in the subpolar north Atlantic. ... [MORE]