North Carolinians will say good-bye to windshield inspection stickers starting Saturday.
The Division of Motor Vehicles is starting a new program to synchronize annual renewal dates for car inspections and registration.
The old program:
Most cars had one monthly deadline for emissions and safety inspections, and another deadline for renewing their registrations. . . .
As of this morning, RDU air travel is divided between a renamed Terminal 1 (formerly Terminal A) and a brand new Terminal 2 (replacing Terminal C, which will be razed this winter to make room for the completion of Terminal 2 in 2011).
If you're using Terminal 2 today -- flying in or out, or meeting or sending someone off -- I'd like to hear about your experience for an N&O story today. I'm especially interested in folks on this afternoon's American flight from London Heathrow.
Please e-mail me or leave me a phone message at 919-829-4527. Don't forget your name and a phone number at which I can reach you today.
Did Terminal 2 work for you? . . .
There it is, dropping like Newton's apple. We never really expected the price of gas to fall so sharply again.
Triangle drivers are paying an average $2.97 for regular today — finally, our first time below $3 in a long time. That's a whopping drop of 96 cents in the past month, and 40 cents in just the past week.
So:
* If you'll just be driving around town, why splurge on a full tank today? Each gallon will be cheaper tomorrow.
* If you're leaving town, why waste your money in the high-price Triangle? Gas is a lot cheaper across most of North Carolina, and in other cities across much of the United States.
We know that what goes down must go up again. But not yet — given the continuing slide in oil prices. Not yet.
How ya like them apples?
Who knew that Hillsborough could pack so many people onto a little bus?
Triangle Transit's Route 420 weekday bus to Chapel Hill seats up to 25 riders, but sometimes there are more than 30 making the morning or afternoon rush-hour trip. The little bus operated by Orange Public Transportation isn’t equipped for strap-hangers, so the overflow crowd sprawls on the narrow floor. . . .
Hundreds of daily commuter trips will change — some will grow longer, some shorter — when Triangle Transit moves its regional bus transfer center out of Research Triangle Park on Dec. 1.
The new transfer point is at the Imperial Center on Slater Road, just east of RTP. It’s two miles southeast of the current location off Davis Drive in RTP, used by Triangle commuters since the 1990s.
“Because the transfer center has shifted east, travel times for people coming in from Raleigh and Cary will drop by about eight minutes,” said John Tallmadge, Triangle Transit’s commuter resources director. . . .
The state Division of Motor Vehicles has stopped decorating driver’s licenses with a silvery hologram that was designed as a nationwide security tool — and derided as the symbol of an anti-American plot.
The foil stamp features the shimmering images of an automobile and a globe centered on North America. It appears on the flip side of 4.6 million licenses issued since December 2006. . . .
Q: Inquiring readers want to know: Does our higher gas tax explain the difference between gas prices here and in neighboring states?
A: No. North Carolina's combined state-federal gas tax of 48.6 cents is just 0.2 above the national average gas tax.
And compared to our southern neighbors in ...
- VIRGINIA: Our gas tax is 10.2 cents higher. But our average gas price today is 37.3 cents higher.
- SOUTH CAROLINA: Our tax is 13.4 cents higher. But our average gas price today is 30.1 cents higher.
Four weeks ago, Asheville was gripped in an Ike-fueled gas drought. Regular (when you could get it) cost $4.31. Today, Asheville gas has fallen to $3.238, just 7.5 cents above the national average price.
In the Triangle? Still the same ripoff: $3.556, the worst average price in a state that continues to have the worst prices in the lower 48.
Government and petroleum industry types still can't explain why Triangle stations have spotty supplies and highway robbery prices.
We can't blame OPEC these days. Crude oil is down to $84 a barrel.
A month later, Hurricane Ike is a distant memory -- except here. Crude oil prices are plunging. But we're still paying through the nose for gas:
- The Triangle has the most expensive gas in North Carolina (an average $3.617 for regular as of Monday, after falling 27 cents in the past month). [Updated 7:30 am Monday.]
- North Carolina still has the most expensive gas in the 48 states east of Alaska and Hawaii ($3.502, 36 cents lower than a month ago).
- Dragged lower by tumbling crude oil prices, the average U.S. retail price for regular has fallen 53 cents in the past month (now at $3.206, according to fuelgaugereport.com). . . .
DOT officials broke ground in Wayne County today on the first 3.9-mile section of a planned U.S. 70 bypass around the north side of Goldsboro.
Barnhill has a $65 million contract to build the section marked as BA on this map, from west of I-795 and U.S. 117 to east of Wayne Memorial Drive. The work is to be finished by the end of December 2011.
The entire 20.5-mile bypass, planned as a four-lane expressway, will cost an estimated $300 million. Construction is expected some time after 2015 on the other sections.
