The Coast Said No. Raleigh Did It Anyway.

A lot of people around here thought this one was dead.

It wasn't.

Starting Jan. 1, the ferries at Currituck-Knotts Island, Hatteras-Ocracoke, Bayview-Aurora and Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach will charge a toll for the first time.

Ask the state what a ride will cost and you get nothing back.

School children ride those boats. So do people headed to work, trucks hauling freight and families driving to a doctor's appointment.

Tourists ride them too, and they will pay the toll like everybody else.

For the people who live here, though, the boat is not a day trip. It is how you get to work on Monday morning.

The state counts these routes as part of its highway system, and for years it has run them for free.

Eight eastern North Carolina counties told the legislature they opposed the tolls.

Raleigh passed them anyway, in Session Law 2026-41, the budget that cleared the General Assembly this summer.

Skipping the boat is no bargain either.

A Knotts Island family that drives instead has to leave North Carolina, head up through Virginia and come back down just to reach another part of their own county.

Rep. Bill Ward represents Camden, Gates, Hertford and Pasquotank.

On July 2 he voted "Aye" on final adoption of the budget that carried the mandate.

Nobody backs every line in a state budget, but District 5 ought to hear what happened.

Did he fight the toll, and does he want it repealed now?

He can say so any day, and this page will print it.

Sen. Bobby Hanig gave his people more to work with.

He said out loud that he opposed the toll and voted against the budget on second reading because of it.

He was absent for the final vote, but nobody in his district had to guess where he stood.

Sen. Norman Sanderson of Pamlico County made the argument that should have won.

The legislature had already ordered an audit of the Ferry Division under House Bill 1094, with State Auditor Dave Boliek's findings due Jan. 15, 2027.

Sanderson asked his colleagues to wait for it.

They didn't, and the tolls now start two weeks before the audit lands.

NCDOT says the money buys new boats, and the fleet is old enough that somebody has to pay for it.

That is a fair argument.

The law also sets up a yearly commuter pass for active-duty military and year-round coastal residents.

What a Knotts Island rider will pay is still a mystery.

NCDOT holds a listening session Sept. 3 at Knotts Island Elementary School, where riders can ask about rates and exemptions.

Go and ask.

But keep it straight: NCDOT can tell you how the toll will work, and only legislators can tell you why it exists.

What we have heard from readers is anecdotal, not a poll.

The frustration is real all the same, and people are worn out from paying more and hearing less.

The legislature created this mandate. The legislature can repeal it.

Every legislator who voted for it should stand in front of the people who elected him and say why.