Here's what's at stake with state budget maneuvers over funding for two new toll projects:

The state Department of Transportation plans to finance the Garden Parkway and the Mid-Currituck Bridge mostly with tolls collected from the drivers that will use them. The legislature already has authorized millions of dollars for planning and preliminary work on these two toll projects.

But DOT doesn’t expect to collect enough in tolls to pay the whole cost of operating and maintaining the road and the bridge, and repaying the money that will be borrowed to finance their construction.

To provide that missing money, the General Assembly has agreed in recent years to make annual “gap” payments for toll roads and bridges.

Each year’s budget now includes gap payments of $25 million for the Triangle Expressway in Research Triangle Park and western Wake County, which opened in January, and $24 million for the planned Monroe Connector Bypass in Union and Mecklenburg counties.

The House proposed in May to add $35 million for the Garden Parkway in Gaston and Mecklenburg counties, and $28 million for the Mid-Currituck Bridge in Currituck County, both starting in 2013. But Senate leaders wanted to cut that money to $15 million for the bridge and $17.5 million for the parkway.

Leaders of both chambers agreed Wednesday to cut all gap money for the Garden Parkway and Mid-Currituck Bridge from the 2013 budget.

Included in the budget agreement rolled out today are provisions that:

* Direct the Department of Transportation to start collecting new and increased ferry tolls that had been ordered in the budget a year ago, but with some changes:

 - The busy Hatteras – Ocracoke ferry across Hatteras Inlet and the Knotts Island ferry across Currituck Sound will remain toll-free, as legislators had agreed in 2011.  Senate leaders previously favored tolls on these routes, too. 

 - The House and Gov. Bev Perdue had proposed to delay the new tolls for a year, citing economic hardship in ferry-dependent coastal communities. The leaders of both chambers agreed in the new budget to give a one-year reprieve only for riders on one route: the Cherry Branch – Minnesott Beach ferry across the Neuse River, which serves Cherry Point commuters.

- Riders on the Pamlico River ferry in Beaufort County, which also serves commuters, will have to start paying tolls for the first time.

* Cut $63 million in funding for the planned Garden Parkway near Charlotte and Mid-Currituck Bridge toll projects on the northern Outer Banks, because DOT officials have said they will not be ready to spend the money in the coming year. 

* Drop a Senate proposal to charge a statewide fee of $45 for teens under age 18 who take driver education class.  Local school systems are still authorized to collect a fee of up to $45, to make up for a cut in state funding last year.

* Eliminate the state’s New Starts program that supplements federal money for urban rail transit projects. The remaining $25 million in the fund will be earmarked for Charlotte’s light-rail line, which has been the only New Starts beneficiary to date. Local officials in the Triangle and other communities with plans for light-rail now will have to compete with highway projects for state money.

* Cut the gas tax, now 38.9 cents per gallon, to a maximum 37.5 cents for the coming year.

* Cut $26 million from a state fund for paving dirt roads and improving other secondary roads.

Documents:

The Senate Rules Committee chairman launched an investigation today into what he called "fraudulent" letters sent to legislators last week that appeared to reverse the state Department of Transportation's position on the need for $63 million in start-up funds for two toll projects (see today's story with reader comments).

Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Hendersonville Republican, said DOT officials would be asked to speak at a Rules Committee hearing Wednesday morning, and representatives of Gov. Bev Perdue's office would be asked to speak at a second hearing Thursday morning.

The letters were drafted Thursday morning by Perdue staffers on DOT stationery and over the signature of Jim Trogdon, DOT's chief operating officer, and appeared to reverse a recommendation Trogdon had made in a June 8 memo to legislative leaders. ... [MORE]

Anthony Fuller, a Los Angeles-based manager for Amtrak, has been named director of the state Department of Transportation Rail Division, DOT said.

Fuller will head an agency that oversees 3,300 miles of tracks used by freight and passenger trains in North Carolina.  DOT has begun using more than $500 million in federal grants for passenger train improvements across the state.  He succeeds Pat Simmons, who retired this spring.

“Anthony brings visionary leadership and broad-based management skills that will strengthen North Carolina’s leadership position in multi-modal transportation,” said Paul Morris, DOT deputy secretary for transit. “His wealth of experience and knowledge obtained while working for over 22 years across the rail industry, combined with a dedicated and qualified staff in the rail division, will provide us with the ability to meet the challenges of creating a rail system for the 21st century.”

Fuller has a bachelor's degree in business administration from N.C. A&T State University and a master's in leadership and management from the University of LaVerne. His salary will be $97,000 per year.

The Senate budget released Monday is good news for people who want more pavement for more dirt roads -- and bad news for Ocracoke residents, tourists, commuters and others who rely on the state ferry system.

The Senate rejects proposals by the House and Gov. Bev Perdue to postpone new and increased tolls on state ferry routes – and the Senate goes farther by refusing to exempt two ferries that both chambers had agreed last year to keep toll-free.

Perdue had issued an executive order refusing to collect the new tolls.  The Senate budget explicitly attacks her order as "an unconstitutional attempt to exercise authority" that Perdue does not have, and it orders the Department of Transportation to ignore it.

House leaders had agreed with Perdue that ferry-dependent communities deserve a reprieve while they recover from the effects of recessiona and Hurricane Irene.  The House budget proposed to give the ferry division an extra $2.5 million, to make up for the additional revenues that had been expected from the postponed ferry tolls.

The Senate budget directs the Department of Transportation to institute the higher rates and to collect tolls on all seven DOT ferry routes. That includes two that were exempted a year ago: the Currituck-Knotts Island ferry, used by public school buses, and the state’s busiest ferry route from Hatteras to Ocracoke, used heavily by tourists and Ocracoke residents.

The Senate proposes to kill urban New Starts and regional transit grant programs worth $28 million.  And the Senate would spend $22 million more than the House to put asphalt on unpaved roads.

Bloggers and TV comics have ridiculed it, and now state legislators will get their first chance Thursday to debate unusual legislation that would put tight restrictions on how state and local agencies plan for rising sea levels. (See 6/8/12 story with reader comments: "Senate likes the slow-rise approach to sea-level forecasting")

The Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee will air the proposal, which was drafted by Republicans in response to controversy over a state-appointed science panel’s warning that a rise of one meter (39 inches) is likely by the end of this century.  Coastal economic development interests protested that the figure was much too high, and they persuaded the state Coastal Resources Commission to reject the panel’s findings.

[Update 7 a.m. 6/7/12: The revised legislation text was released this morning and is attached below, with broader guidelines and without some of the narrow restrictions that had been circulated a few weeks ago.

Scientists, developers, environmentalists, property owners and other interested parties: I'm reporting on this today. Please read this legislation and let me know what you think about it. Remember to include your name and contact info.

It makes the Coastal Resources Commission the sole agency "authorized to define rates of sea-level rise for regulatory purposes" and says: ... [MORE]

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

North Carolina's "bus-on-shoulder" pilot program is scheduled to start July 16, giving commuters on a few Triangle Transit routes the option to bypass rush-hour congestion by rolling on the Interstate 40 shoulder.

When traffic stops or crawls as slowly as 35mph, bus drivers on I-40 will be able to drive slowly on the shoulder, something that will continue to be illegal for other drivers.  The initial program will be in effect for a 10-mile section of I-40 in both directions between U.S. 15-501 and N.C. 147 (the Durham Freeway and Triangle Expressway), and in the eastbound direction for two miles from N.C. 147 to Page Road.

That stretch of I-40 is traversed only by a handful of Triangle Transit routes: ... [MORE]

House transportation budget writers decided Thursday where to absorb an expected drop in gas tax collections next year, and they delivered the biggest spending cut to the state's program for paving gravel roads and improving paved secondary roads.

The House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee accepted a plea from Rep. Phil Shepard, a Jacksonville Republican, to ease the damage that a proposed budget would have caused for rural and urban transit programs.  The panel agreed to cut public transit grants by $2.6 million instead of the $8.6 million originally proposed, and it shifted the $6 million difference to the secondary road construction fund.

“Our transit system takes people to the doctor and dialysis and many places our senior citizens can’t get to, in the city (Jacksonville) and in the county (Onslow),” Shepard said in an interview. He said he saw less need for money to pave gravel roads.  (The House transportation money report and Shepard's amendment - which changes some numbers in the money report - are attached to this blog post.) ... [MORE]

Red is dead, and Orange may be passé. Consultants hired by Garner, the Regional Transportation Alliance and the regional planning agency CAMPO have redecorated the Triangle Expressway / 540 Outer Loop map with two new route colors: Lilac and Plum (see 5/23/12 story and 5/22/12 Road Worrier column with reader comments).

Appended to this blog post you can find two new documents: the Turnpike Authority's May 17 letter to the Federal Highway Administration, which includes the Regional Tranpsortation Alliance's Lilac-Plum update, and a large map showing where the Lilac and Plum routes would go.  [Note to jittery property owners: ... [MORE]

It's Day 1 of the 2012 legislative session, and already we have action on ferries, car inspections, toll roads and other transportation stuff.

* Inspections will still be required for all cars. The House-Senate Joint Transportation Oversight Committee today had no interest in discussing, evaluating or modifying a proposal to end the required safety and emissions inspections for vehicles from the three newest model years. It simply killed the bill in a 7-5 vote (see today's story with reader comments).

Meanwhile, without dissent or discussion, the oversight committee approved other legislative proposals:

* Updating top DOT job titles. This measure would retire the venerable title of state highway admnistrator, and give a new title to the person holding that job (currently, Terry Gibson): chief engineer.  DOT explains: We're way more than highways now. We're also bikes, trains, ferries, etc., etc.

DOT used to have somebody else called chief engineer as the top honcho for  something else called operations. After a department reorganization intended to reduce layers of management, the old chief engineer was moved under the wing of the old highway adminstrator.  Jon Nance, formerly chief engineer, now is addressed as ... deputy chief engineer. ... [MORE]