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We are venturing north-west, passing Birmingham on Wednesday morning at 9am-ish. In these depths of recession I assume that our motorway blackspots are now completely without hold-ups allowing unimpeded 70mph progress, just like forty years ago. I rarely travel on the M6 so would appreciate advice as to whether it is worth investing the price of a passable bottle of wine for what must be now a very quiet road?
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Came back from the north-west round Brum one week-day early evening last October.
Used the toll road. Worth every penny.
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I sometimes travel East Midlands to North Wales and I use the Toll Road every time; it isn't that expensive and there is a pretty good service area towards the North end. Toll road is never busy, M6 usually is.
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Depends where you're coming from, presumably you are coming up M5 or M40?
If so and its 9ish and not 8ish i'd be inclined to use the M5 to the end and slip onto M6 as normal, slipping along the M42 to join M5 if coming up M40.
By the time you've dawdled along past the busy M42 east section to join the toll rd, you'd nearly be about jct2 M5.
If you are approaching from M6 Coventry end then it may well be worth the exhorbitant cost of the toll as the roadworks from jct4 to jct5 M6 can be a pita.
It's all subject to any problems on the day.
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I use it on the odd occasion when I travel East Midlands to North Wales. It is never clogged up, there is a reasonable servic area at the North end. The M6 is usually very busy, except iin the early hours of the morning.
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As has been said, if you're coming up the M5 then it's not worth the additional distance but otherwise ...... YES YES YES and YES again
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cant say ive ever used the toll, and cant see me changing....
I feel I pay out enough anyway, and Ive never been badly held up on the M6, even when they were resurfacing and had closed one carriageway....
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The only time I dont use the toll road is if I am transiting the area on a Sunday.
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gb:...exhorbitant cost of the toll...
AS:...it isn't that expensive...
Brother lives near the toll road and he reckons it's too dear to use regularly or for shortish journeys.
Well worth using for a cross-country run or 'one off' journey.
I think the toll might have risen quite a bit in the last year or two and is now around £5.
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I think it's a total rip off, £5ish for a car weighing 1 ton or £9.40 for a 44 ton truck, the car driver's are being turned over big time.
I know what the alternative motorway routes are like at the time as i still have my trusty 'trafficmaster' running continually, the M6 delay message boards that advise using the M6 toll which is always clear seem to take a long time to update after any delay has long gone, though i can't for one moment imagine why.;)
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If each and every one of us refused point blank to use this toll road, the company running it would quickly go pop.
It started at £2.00 and now stands at £4.70.
I have a little disc attached to my windscreen which costs me over £200 a year. I stupidly thought that this was my payment for using our road network.
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The other con with the toll rd is signage, particularly at the southern end.
If you are unfamiliar with the road layout it's spectacularly easy to find yourself inadvertantly entering the blasted thing for sometimes only a journey of a few miles and paying a fiver for the privelige.
Got to have your wits about you in the area from Coleshill to Wall in particular as all roads lead to the toll.
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>>The other con with the toll rd is signage
I fully agree - the signage is very misleading. For example, there's a section of the toll road where the perfectly reasonable A38 runs in parallel, and, as you approach from the Birmingham end of this section, the signs for the A38 dry up, but, the signs for the toll road become more prominent. Odd that!
There are also toll road based annoyances - particularly the traffic light controlled roundabouts which routinely stop the traffic on the A38 - even when there's no-one coming off the toll road.
The whole thing is a scam, and I hope never to use it.
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Birmingham end of this section the signs for the A38 dry up
Friend of mine fell for that one, and so easily done, cost him full price for a 4 or 5 mile section running as you rightly say parallel to the A38 he was a moment earlier happily using.
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The disc on your windscreen is just another tax on you - it has nothing to do with the construction or maintenenance of roads - it is used to but no more! Even if it did go towards road construction it wouldn't cover roads built and maintained by a private firm. You can't cross the Severn toll bridges on your 'Tax' disc so the M6 toll is the same.
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Have used it a few times - most recently last Friday on way back from Bournemouth. £4.70 it is now. It can be a big time saver.
Of course there can still be hold ups on it. You have to watch also for police operations to catch speeders -often on the northbound section not far from the toll plaza.
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If each and every one of us refused point blank to use this toll road the company running it would quickly go pop.
And you would stupidly be held up in the jam on the old road because of all those people not using the toll road. I can just see you sitting there and grumbling.
I have a little disc attached to my windscreen which costs me over £200 a year. I stupidly thought that this was my payment for using our road network.
Indeed so you can use the road that was there before that your little disc paid for.
Me? I will use the road that someone else decided to build. Enjoy your time in the jam.
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No problem, I'll sit in the jam and stick to my principles. Funny thing is though, the road works on the stretch of the M6 that the toll road replaces, never seem to be completed. I wonder why that is ?
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Because they know you wont use the toll road, and they do it to get at you. Just you you understand.
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By and large I can only earn money when my customer's businesses are open. This tends in the main to be when the roads are busy too. If I need to pass through the Birmingham area I'm not going to sit there not earning money in a traffic jam. £4.70 does seem a bit steamy but if it saves me 45 minutes or something I'd like to think I could use that time to generate a bit more than that. Before the toll road opened it was a nightmare of a bottleneck.
I look at it like the short term car park at an airport. you don't have to use it but it is there if you want it thank goodness. It costs more but if your needs or priorities are such that it suits you to use it that day then that's fine by me.
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Funny thing is though the road works on the stretch of the M6 that the toll road replaces never seem to be completed.
Rubbish, yes they are completed. Having said that its one of the busiest stretches of motorway in the country and is a high maintenance stretch (look at the construction of the motorway over that stretch) which probably is why they have to work there so often... wear and tear, just like on your car... funnily enough a couple of weeks ago I went down it and there weren't any at all!
Going back to the OP, I assume you are coming up the M6 from the M1... if so then I'd defineitely suggest you use the Toll, M6, 9am on a Weekday and Birmingham Rush Hour are not a very good combination for a quick journey...
Edited by b308 on 17/05/2009 at 19:45
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If each and every one of us refused point blank to use this toll road the company running it would quickly go pop. It started at £2.00 and now stands at £4.70. I have a little disc attached to my windscreen which costs me over £200 a year. I stupidly thought that this was my payment for using our road network.
Got to admit it, I'm with Mr X all the way on this one. I've always considered the M6 toll road as the thin end of the wedge.
I'd love to see a boycott.
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Depends whether time is of the essence, and how much you can tolerate high-density high-speed driving. I have not yet set foot (tyre) on the Toll road, and I avoid the M6 as much as I can. It is essential - to get past Stoke. A51/A5 from Trentham past Tamworth to the M1 at DIRFT was beautifully clear last Monday (10am to noon) except for the busy bit near Hinckley. Unless you hate occasional roundabouts of course.
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I used it southbound last weekend...nothing on it really. Police were at the south end with cameras but as I mimse along at 60, I'm safe.
Wouldn't use the M6...been stuck too many times.
Ted
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Police were at the south end with cameras
That's quite a new thing, however I've seen many a speeding motorist being stopped by an unmarked polce Volvo. You might get away with it if you happened upon a clear bit of the M6 but it must be dead easy to catch people on the toll road.
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Just to ask a silly question. If the toll road is privately owned and therefore one pays a fee to use it, why can you be nicked for speeding on it as if it were a public highway ?
Not arguing the point you understand, just curious really.
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 17/05/2009 at 20:06
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On the basis that you can be done for a motoring offence on a private carpark that is open to the public (such as a supermarket one) then I suspect that you can...
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If the toll road is privately owned
This is a misnoma - it's not privately owned. The road traffic act applies anyway, but it's a moot point as the Government owns the road.
A private company financed the building of the road and has a concession to run it (for about 50 years, I think).
Usage of the toll road was down over 10% in the first quarter of 2009.
Edited by Bill Payer on 17/05/2009 at 20:22
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we use it every time we venture north of Hadrians, which is 2 or 3 times a year (unless it's an overnight trip)...saves loads of time and my time is worth more to me than £4.70....another plus is the services are chav free, because those sort don't pay to use the toll road... everyone's a winner, because we're not adding to the congestion on the M6.
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I tend to go to Manchester to London a lot just because its so cheap and I my family are all from London so its good to see the local history.
I usualy get the train (two hours) but occasionaly get the coach if I can't get cheap train tickets. I get the Megabus takes 4 and a half hours and it goes via the M6 toll even though its a budget coach. The driver told me it saves me a good hour if not more of the journey and of course every mile the coach is stuck in M6 traffic it is costing Brian Souter a lot of money so its well worth them paying the extra for the toll.
For me it is the most relaxing part of the journey as there is never any traffic.
The idea of a toll is simple, if you want to pay extra to not get stuck in traffic you can do it just depends how much you value your time I guess.
As for the tax thing I was going to say everytime you use public transport you pay tax (VAT) but then I remembered its zero rated. So yes road tax is just an extra tax us car drivers have to pay. I have only once had to pay it as most my cars seem to be end up in the scrap yard before the disc expires :D.
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The argument used for removing all the toll bridges in Scotland a year or two ago was that it opens up the economy of the country, and gives a level playing field, especially to communities around the tolls.
I can see a similar argument for scrapping the toll on the M6 toll, personally. By providing an alternative, the traffic will be much more evenly spread between those using the old M6 to get to Birmingham and the environs, and those who just want to get past the city on the M6 toll. Net result would surely be less delays all round, even if it does mean the toll road would become busier, and less cost to business in delays.
My personal feeling is that it should never have been built as a toll road in the first place, it was an essential missing gap in our roads infrastructure - much like the Skye Bridge.
As for Megabus - well, the thought of costing Brian Souter a lot of money isn't necessarily one I'd lose any sleep over!
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Just to ask a silly question. If the toll road is privately owned and therefore one pays a fee to use it why can you be nicked for speeding on it as if it were a public highway ? Not arguing the point you understand just curious really.
For the same reason you can be done for drink driving in a supermarket car park, public access.
Edited by Old Navy on 18/05/2009 at 09:39
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I expect there will be some 'enabling legislation' somewhere which, among other things, will make it clear the road is subject to the same laws as any other.
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Thanks everyone - I shall use it!
I entirely agree with Mr X - from the above posts it looks as though it is needed rather than merely wanted, and so should be covered by the tax disc.
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I am intrigued by all these fans who state how much time it saves.
I have never used it (save for an early use when it was only a couple of pounds, just "for fun").
I have never been held up on the M6 since the toll opened. Admittely I do not use the M6 during weekday rush hour.
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