Tolls 'could pay for new roads'...

BertieUK

A plan to fund roads using tolls which drivers would pay to private companies, is to be included in the coalition's new policy agenda.

This will go down well over breakfast...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20822724

MacMickster

I really don't see the problem with this idea. The use of toll roads would be voluntary (as with the M6 toll).

The construction of new roads would create jobs, and the roads themselves would ease some of the congestion on our overcrowded road network, making it cheaper to transport goods around the country.

wymondham

This is messy. I'm not happy about private investment in infrasructure - looks whats happended to the trains!

So we will have the expense of road tax and tolls and fuel duty. This will create a two tear infrastructure where those can pay will travel on empty roads, and those that can't clog up B roads.

The only fair way of getting income and being fair is to scrap all tolls and car tax and replace it with a higher fuel dutyl. This will:

Make paying the tax unavoidable

Easy and cheap to collect (not car tax collection dept needed so savings)

Those that use the roads more, pay more, so is fairer

Those cars that are not fuel efficient use more fuel, so they pay more

Foreign motorists (especially lorries) would also pay (increasing income) - i know lorries have big tanks but every little helps!

If you dont use fuel for your car, then you are tax free, so encourages green travel

No need to build and man expensive toll booths

This solution seems so blindingly obvious and makes sense I can't see why its not been considered. If anyone can see a downside please post back as i'm interested. It seems the Government can't rethink ideas but can only tag on to existing ones!

zappahey

I can't find the M6 toll road article, that I read some time ago, but the last paragraph if this article suggests that the loss-making M6 might not be the best example.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/03319898-3888-11e2-bd7d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2Fm2DdpNu

Graham_Devon

MacMickster wrote: »

I really don't see the problem with this idea. The use of toll roads would be voluntary (as with the M6 toll).

The construction of new roads would create jobs, and the roads themselves would ease some of the congestion on our overcrowded road network, making it cheaper to transport goods around the country.

I'd agree, to a point.

The M6 is pretty much the only example we have, bar bridges.

The point at which it get's messy is when the M6 toll becomes the M6 itself. This is my worry over toll roads...when they just become the normal roads and the old route is made so bad or long winded that you have little choice but to pay the toll.

Let's face it, the M6 toll hasn't been that successful, neither financially or in terms of it's aims (to reduce congestion) so something will have to be different to make us choose to pay.

Graham_Devon

wymondham wrote: »

This solution seems so blindingly obvious and makes sense I can't see why its not been considered. If anyone can see a downside please post back as i'm interested. It seems the Government can't rethink ideas but can only tag on to existing ones!

It does really....and I think they use this solution, to some extent anyway in some countries in Europe?

Maybe the government would prefer lots of smaller payments, rather than one big payment. Making one big payment would show the true tax being collected, whereas smaller chunks doesn't register as much.

zappahey

Here's an interesting report on the M6 toll road http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/system/files/M6-Toll-Report-Aug-10.pdf

I don't know this organisation nor what overall agenda they might have but they're not very positive about the M6. I'm also not convinced that their overall conclusion, that toll roads are bad, can be justified by a single example but it's hard to argue that the M6 toll is not a failure.

grizzly1911

As I understand it the M6 is not making money. Apart form rush hour, when you need it to leap frog the Black Country and Birmingham, it is lightly used.

I am not in favour of toll roads or road pricing but I read somewhere it is an EU objective, certainly for trunk routes. It will simply price more people off the key routes.

May sound fine to tree hugging city dwellers but it does nothing for those who live out of public transport hubs, with poor public transport.

Cars are already heavily taxed,. VAT on purchase, RFL, fuel duty, VAT on fuel, VAT on car maintenance, carp park tax etc.

I do think foreign drivers should need to pay some form of vignette, as in Switzerland, to use our trunk routes.

BertieUK

Is it really a revolutionary concept that the tax paid on cars, fuel and roads is at least spent on roads, look at the M6 toll, always near empty, people pile onto the M6. Do we want this repeated on a national scale where motorway traffic is pushed onto village roads not designed for it

Generali

BertieUK wrote: »

Is it really a revolutionary concept that the tax paid on cars, fuel and roads is at least spent on roads, look at the M6 toll, always near empty, people pile onto the M6. Do we want this repeated on a national scale where motorway traffic is pushed onto village roads not designed for it

AIUI, taxes on cars/fuel/speeding fines don't collect nearly enough to pay for the road network.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

BertieUK wrote: »

Is it really a revolutionary concept that the tax paid on cars, fuel and roads is at least spent on roads,

Indeed.

The only thing required to fix the old and creaking transportation infrastructure of this country is to pass a law mandating that 100% of transportation tax revenue collected from using it is spent on upgrading and modernising it.

You wouldn't even need to do it forever, 15 to 20 years would be enough.

We'd spend in the region of 2 trillion pounds in the next couple of decades, and have a modern and expanded road, rail and airport network that would be the envy of the World.