The Skye Bridge toll has been discontinued.
Should we follow suite with all bridge and tunnel tolls in the UK?
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I heard that, but they didn't say why.
I mean, I know people have been protesting, but what was their published reason for discontinuing the toll ?
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As far as I can gather and recall, the Scottish Executive got fed up with motorists griping about having to pay and bought out the contract from the American company that built it and had the rights to collect the tolls for £27 million.
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Why cannot the UK government show the same degree of common sense as the Scots? Not just on this but on Uni fees and care home costs as well.
I know ther'll be a Scot along in mo to tell me they're a bunch of spendthrifts.
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Bromptonaut - You are of course correct Scottish Students do not pay Uni tuition fees - they pay a "Graduate tax" instead. My daughter (final year at St Andrews) just got her bill about £2000, along with the offer to add it to her student loan. And of course Scottish University degree courses are 4 years not three. Total debt about £20,000.
Is it value for money?
Mark
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Starting with the Dartford bridge/tunnel tolls.
I suspect this is a tax rather than a toll as the tunnel has certainly been paid for and I suspect the bridge as well.
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We still need to pay for the air that we breathe as we drive over it.
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Dartford has been paid for, the tolls should have come off on 1st April 2003.
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I'm sure there was a recent thread which pointed out that the tolls were retained to obtain more money but also to regulate traffic flows on the M25 - can't find the thread though!
DD will no doubt oblige!
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It was me that posted the reply from the Highways people.
Why worry about restricting the road to control traffic flow there? The tunnel does that quite efficiently, although it's got four lanes and the hold-up is always on the toll booths and not the tunnel entrance.
If they want to restrict the traffic a row of cones would do the job just as well!
The bridge has enough capacity to take the three lanes of the M25 feeding it, once again the only thing messing it up are the booths.
The tolls, and even more so the toll booths, really do need to be got rid of pronto.
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Me?
Happy to pay the toll for the M6.
Well peed off about the dartford crossing toll - no good reason for a toll on this of any kind
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I don't see how charging a toll or putting any other restriction on the Dartford crossing is goint to cut traffic flow by even one vehicle per day. Where the hell else can you cross the river? As if you are going to come off the M25 then crawl along the A13 nightmare for about ten miles till you reach the Woolwich ferry or the Blackwall tunnel is an option.
The toll is there because they know they can collect, no other reason.
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Tom,
Brian will correct me if I am wrong but I thought his post said that it was to regulate FLOWS not amount of traffic. i.e. that the tolls acted like a kind of filter and depending on how many were open they could allow certain volume of traffic through (by causing bloomin' great jams on the "other" side of the toll gates.
Just found the thread.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=26448&...f
Quote from Highways Agency
Paying to use the crossing is not the limiting factor on traffic at the crossing, but rather the capacity of the crossing itself particularly the tunnels. The layout of the toll plaza is not designed for free flow conditions, and the toll plazas perform an important safety role in controlling the demand and speed of vehicles both through the tunnels and away from the bridge. For instance, southbound there are three closely spaced junctions, and much of the carriageway for through traffic is restricted to two lanes. To allow a free flow of traffic through the plaza area would increase the possibility of accidents occurring, thus leading to more delays.
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I'm out of touch with that area now, but I seem to remember there is a 40 or 50 limit for some distance after the crossing. I can think of many busy roads with closely spaced junctions and similar speed limits which manage ok. Bearing in mind that frustrated drivers who have been tailing back to Brentwood because of the toll delays are much more likely to drive aggresively after they finally cross I don't buy the safety argument.
The person who thought of that as a reason for keeping the tolls probably gained promotion as a result.
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I wouldn't disagree with you! Just quoting!
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the toll plazas perform an important safety role ...
A role which is not dependent on the collection of an amount of cash.
Yet, strangely, they continue to do so. Funny how there is such a disjoint between the action and the reasons for the action whenever HMG get involved.
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Picking up BrianW's point...
>>Should all road tolls be scrapped and, if so, how could a campaign to achieve that end be organised?
I don't think road tolls are an issue per se. The issue is that they are additional to other taxation.
If, for example, road tax was cheaper in County X because they had road tolls and more expensive in County Y because they did not, then presumably the issue is lessened - I do realise the practical difficulties.
Surely the issue is the larger one of all taxes, costs, charges etc as one larger picture.
If a reasonable budget was done, such as everybody but politicians would be expected to do, and one could see that a toll in one place was a lesser cost somehwere else, then I'd be fine with that.
Problem is, the revenue collected is not used to pay for roads/traffic/police etc. They should start again; fund all police, roads, repairs, whatever, even hospital and emergency service bills and every other conceivable cost from road taxation.
But nothing else.
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Don't be daft. Sensible ideas like that have no place in politics.
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Let's all write "Mark (RLBS)" onto our ballot papers next February!
Reminds of the quote noting that a benevolent dictatorship was always in practice preferable to an incompetent democracy, if not in theory.
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