Toll roads. What the hell is up with toll roads? Brisbane has recently "celebrated" (I use the term very loosely) the opening of the Clem Jones M7 Tunnel, commonly known as the Clem7. It is apparently the longest tunnel in Australia at 6.7km (or something). It allows people to travel from one side of the Brisbane River to the other without travelling through the City/Valley areas and avoiding lots of traffic lights. Nice. It cost $4.30 per trip. WTF!?! Why the hell does it cost me to use it? Didn't my taxes pay for the freakin' thing? And now they want to charge me for using it? I helped frikkin' pay for it! But even better, they have made the tunnel free for the first 18 days, then half price for the following 5 weeks. So like a good drug dealer, your first taste is free then they'll give you cheap hits until you're hooked, then charge you like a wounded bull 'cause you can't give it up. How can anyone use this thing and think its saving them money? They claim it will save you petrol. How? If you use the thing during Peak Hour, it will cost you $8.60 per day to use it and surely this tunnel will not save people over $40 in petrol costs per week? Time? Sure but at the cost of $40 per week? Surely it won't be that much faster than the current routes? If I was on a significant salary, I'm sure I could afford the $1100+ a year it would cost me to use the thing but the average bloke like myself can't afford it for a daily commute!
We have another river crossing being made as well: the poorly named "Go-Between" Bridge (yes, they really called it that). Another new road. Yay! Another way across the river. Yay! Another freakin' toll road! WTF!?! Yet another road built with public money that they're going to charge us to use. What in the hell? They claim it is to help recoup the costs of building the road. I can handle that (roads are expensive to build) but once the cost has been regained, will the toll go away? Not bloody likely. The Gateway Motorway paid for itself 10 years ago yet they kept the toll going. They're even talking about increasing it again.
The more I look at it the more I'd like to move away from the city.
Detached Jack Arms
1 year ago
I thought it was that the Gateway was owned by 3rd parties and when it was paid off they sold it again which kept the tolls going?
ReplyDelete"St Staid"? I'm not sure if I want to talk about this one.
As I understand it, it's actually leased by the company to maintain it and thus they get to charge a toll, but if you've noticed they rarely do any work to it, they just reap the toll and sit fat and happy with their profits. But when it was first built, the QLD government said that once the toll paid for the road, they would remove it. They didn't. Using public money to build roads and then allow private firms to control said roads and charge tolls is offensive to me.
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