An advertisement for the new Triangle Expressway and N.C. Quick Pass describes the new route as an escape from "the agony of bumper-to-bumper traffic," as if the current traffic situation is the result of an unavoidable natural disaster instead of a decades-long policy of allowing new construction to flourish without improving the transportation infrastructure along with it.

According to census data, between 2000 and 2010 83,470 people moved into Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina and Cary, with many of these new residents using the few main arteries that lead to Research Triangle Park. In this period, minimal relief came about a decade late in the form of single lanes added to parts of Davis Drive and N.C. 55 along with the addition of flow-choking traffic lights.

It almost seems as if the roads were intentionally left overburdened in order to promote increased usage of the new fee-based route.

Michael Silverstein

Cary