Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, several; one is that the state has large transportation needs, both in the construction of news roads as well as the maintenance of existing roads in order to meet our growing population and vehicle use. Vehicle use is increasing faster than population, and yet the commission found that we don't have the funds to meet those needs. For example, one issue is that we now have a cap on the state gas tax, and that is actually inhibiting the ability of the state to keep up in terms of road revenues with inflation, and therefore to continue building roads and maintaining roads. So what the committee did is look at many options of where additional revenues could be gotten. One of them they talked about was the very controversial mileage fee. This is actually being investigated in other states as well as in North Carolina. You would be charged a fee or a tax based on how many miles you drive rather than how many gallons of gas you use. The committee also recommended looking at more toll roads, perhaps tolling our interstates and tolling other roads in order to raise revenue. These are obviously going to be very hotly debated issues, but I think one place of agreement among everyone is that roads and transportation are absolutely vital to our state's economy."