Stolen from my favourite Facebook group (warning: not really safe for work).
Literally my thoughts as I try to navigate around Brisbane. A trip from the west to the airport can involve up to half a dozen tolls if you do it wrong.
I think the government shouldn’t pay for roads… they should pay for much more efficient forms of transportation like trains, buses, and bicycle infrastructure.
To be fair I like the sentiment but the message is just wrong at least in the United States. Here toll roads are privately built roads in conjunction with public entities. They contract generally defines a certain period where tolls can be collected to recoup the cost of the road with profit so say a road costs 5 mil they might be able to collect for 10 years with a estimated value of 40mil.
It’s crazy and nonsensical when the smart money is in public funding of grand national projects like high speed rail with a focus on cargo and intercity travel preferably underground. Japan is doing a huge project that moved most of their services into deep underground tunnels and I think that’s a smart thing to do for the us.
Similar here, but the contract periods tend to be much longer. Like 50 to 100 years before they’ll go toll-free, which is just absurd really. And they’re not fully private ventures, taxpayer money is spent on these bits of infrastructure.
And the worst part is they don’t really do anything to improve traffic long-term. During peak hour, it’s not unusual to jump in the tunnel only to be stuck in the same gridlock traffic as you’d be in anyway, only you just paid 6 bucks for the privilege.
I say let the private companies try to make their money, the cost of driving should reflect its true cost to society to push people towards more sustainable options. And once there are less people on the road, existing tolls will have no choice but to set pricing competatively or die (b.c. traffic wouldn’t be a concern anymore)
Maybe I’m a bit extreme in my position, but I really hate cars for so many reasons…
Because they don’t want any peasants and serfs creating traffic for the 1% trying to get around ok?
Yeh… you states with toll roads should be up in arms about that fucking racket. Privatisation fucking running rampant up there. What a blatant scam.
Tolls are good actually
People should pay for their roads. “Free” driving leads to a tragedy of the commons, and inefficient road system.
But we do though, with rego and fuel taxes and the like - sorry, I’m just confused and trying to clarify atm, were you suggesting we don’t at the moment?
Old workplace had its head office in Brisneyland (we’re in melbs) and every damned time I was up there for a training junket I ended up in a car full of screaming coworkers, taking tunnel after tunnel and desperately clawing at google maps trying to figure out when the fuck we entered the tenth circle of hell because there are ten circles, not nine, the tenth is the one where you’re trying to get from The Circuit to the CBD in peak traffic while crammed in a tiny rental car with several large men who have just come off a 4 hour flight.
