Toll roads are not always successful....

Metrobest

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Bell tolls for the roadway few wanted

HOPELESSLY inaccurate traffic forecasts condemned the Cross City Tunnel to an early demise.

Full price, half price or even free of charge, the tunnel never attracted enough traffic to pay even the interest on the debt of $560 million, let alone provide the consortium with the 12.83 to 16 per cent annual return it expected on its investment.

More than a year after the tunnel opened, no one can explain how the forecasters got it so wrong. The Roads and Traffic Authority used consultants Masson Wilson Twiney to predict traffic flows in two separate environmental impact statements produced after the State Government first announced the project.

The company estimated at least 80,000 cars would be using the tunnel by now, not the 35,000 the tunnel struggles to get. In an interview earlier this year, the company's Chris Wilson admitted: "We're out on this one," but he could not explain why the numbers were so wrong. Even more ambitious were the Cross City Tunnel consortium's forecasts provided by Hyder Consulting, which Mr Wilson described as "pretty strong stuff".

Those forecasts were for 85,000 cars six months after opening, increasing to 109,000 in 2016 and 197,000 in 2034, figures which distorted the financial model so badly receivership quickly became inevitable.

For some, the $3.50 toll has been prohibitive, especially those from the south who must also pay a $4.50 Eastern Distributor toll. But even when the tunnel was free, the daily total users rarely exceeded 50,000.

Other toll roads, including the M2 and the Eastern Distributor, have struggled to attract traffic at the start, but none have suffered such calamitous shortfalls.

When Bob Carr and his then roads minister Carl Scully announced the tunnel in 1998, it was for a much shorter version.

The City of Sydney wanted it longer to get traffic off William Street, and the Government agreed to extend it almost to Rushcutters Bay.

This pushed up costs for the builders and for potential customers, especially with the RTA pushing for the best financial deal it could get for the Government rather than the cheapest toll for motorists.

A longer tunnel meant more road closures. Although they were announced in advance, those announcements meant nothing until furious drivers discovered they were suddenly jammed into constricted streets or forced into the tunnel.

They blamed the Government, and the then roads minister, Joe Tripodi, sacked the head of the RTA, Paul Forward. When the pressure mounted on the consortium, its chief executive, Peter Sansom, was ditched and replaced with Graham Mulligan.

Finally, with an election due next year, the Government was forced to reopen closed roads.

By reopening these roads, the Government appears to be in breach of clauses referring to a "material adverse event".

Contracts said if the RTA stopped directing cars into the tunnel it would have to negotiate with the operators to "pay interest payments, and repay the principal owing".

It is too early to say whether taxpayers will end up paying for a tunnel drivers have shunned

mysterious

Spot on Metrobest...

Tolls don't seem to be popular or work on city roads in most cities across the globe IMO. The same on main arterial roads in and out of cities that that are mostly commuter based traffic... I'm not against toll booths as long as there are located on intercity routes spacedly apart with alternatice routes provided to avoid tolls if liked.

Take Irelands classic example M4 at Enfield. Almost 8,000 vehicles a day avoid it.:eek: It's obviously not pulling the numbers than the figures prior to the new road, ie Old N4 had.

Another example, Paris is a city with hardly a toll insight. yet throughout France the road network is riddled with toll collection booths! So this must mean the people don't agree with tolls in cities, and work on interurbans. I hope I'm correct.
Anyway European cities don't have tollbridges very close to the city.

In Ireland, we are putting them on high trafficked roads near principal towns and cities.
Like Drogheda bypass M1 almost half the traffic on these toll bridges will be at least commuter traffic.
Fermoy N8
Limerick N7
Port tunnel and M50 Westlink. and the M3 which will be a disaster.

Metrobest

Thanks Mysterious. The thing with the M4, however, is that the public did not have to pay for the cost of building it - it was built as a PPP. The public can now decide if the toll is worth the time and stress saved by using a modern road versus the old N4.

And if the M4 fails to make any money for the consortium that built it the public does not lose out. The private sector bears all the risk.

In the case of Sydney's cross city tunnel, the public simply decided that the toll was too high for the 2KM tunnel. So they continued to use old routes. Market forces in action. Now the tunnel has gone into receivership and the toll is likely to be seriously reduced.

I do think that tolls have their place on city roads, both as a "congestion charge" and as a means of financing quality roads. Paris's answer to the M50, the Peripherique, is a monster road with huge congestion! Not being tolled, it simply cannot handle the volume of city traffic spilling onto it.

Sydney has several toll roads including the Harbour Bridge and Tunnel, a toll you simply cannot avoid if you're traveling from the North side to the city as there's no other feasible route! Melboure, too, has an electronic toll on its city ring road. Dublin is by no means the only city with a toll on its ring road! Although it must be the only city where the tolls are collected so inefficiently, the toll booths placed in such a poor location and the junctions leading off the motorway designed so poorly. Hopefully the upgrade will fix this.

The difference between here and Dublin is that the tolls are collected mostly electronically and are collected in only one direction - the other flows freely.

Also, see below the overhead gantries on the harbour bridge regulating traffic flow. During the morning peak, the majority of the lanes are for inbound traffic and in the evening peak, the majority are outbound. I've always thought such as system would be beneficial on Dublin's key arteries as traffic you often see empty outbound lanes on roads like the N3 in the morning peak and vice versa.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_City_Tunnel

Calina

Metrobest wrote:

Also, see below the overhead gantries on the harbour bridge regulating traffic flow. During the morning peak, the majority of the lanes are for inbound traffic and in the evening peak, the majority are outbound. I've always thought such as system would be beneficial on Dublin's key arteries as traffic you often see empty outbound lanes on roads like the N3 in the morning peak and vice versa.

That requires competent driving and frankly given the inability of Irish drivers to follow existing signage such as "No Right Turn" and "Do not Overtake" and speed limits, I really wouldn't trust them with roads whose direction change with volume.

Victor

Sorry Metrobest, could you provide a link to the SMH, its only fair.

mysterious wrote:

Almost 8,000 vehicles a day avoid it.:eek:

IIHIR, 20,000 vehicles a day use it.

mysterious wrote:

In Ireland, we are putting them on high trafficked roads near principal towns and cities.

More correctly they are put at choke points, where people would be willing to pay a toll to avoid an obstacle, e.g. congestion (Dublin) or a circuitous/winding route (Milau).

Like Drogheda bypass M1 almost half the traffic on these toll bridges will be at least commuter traffic.

Hardly. I imagine most people in living in Drogheda and working in Dublin avoid the toll, many because it’s a shorter route to use the R132.

And what’s wrong with commuters paying tolls where there are parallel bus and train services?

Fermoy N8

At that point, it’s not really a commuter route, it’s too far out.

Limerick N7

Only in respect of a small amount of cross-city traffic.

Port tunnel

Toll is there to reserve tunnel for HGVs & buses.

M50 Westlink.

Profoundly bad implementation.

and the M3 which will be a disaster.

Potentially, in more ways than one.

Metrobest wrote:

The thing with the M4, however, is that the public did not have to pay for the cost of building it - it was built as a PPP.

But at the same time, the exchequer coughed up quite a bit to provide the initial design, land acquisition, etc. Cullen made the point that the Dundalk Bypass was "free" - it wasn't - it was built in exchange for the tolling rights at Drogheda.

Metrobest wrote:

I do think that tolls have their place on city roads, both as a "congestion charge" and as a means of financing quality roads. Paris's answer to the M50, the Peripherique, is a monster road with huge congestion! Not being tolled, it simply cannot handle the volume of city traffic spilling onto it.

The M50 is semi-rural, the Peripherique is strictly urban (only 2 million people live inside it of Paris's 11 million population). Paris has or is getting four motorway-style ring routes (the motorway-ness of the Peripherique is questioned).

It would appear that neither the article nor the wiki page tell the full story by themselves. The restricted streets mentioned are city centre streets, which I presume have been part-pedestrianised or at least made more pedestrian friendly.

Map http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Cross+City+Tunnel+Eastbound,+NSW,+Australia&ie=UTF8&sll=-33.886377,151.028366&sspn=0.434923,0.6427&om=1&z=17&ll=-33.871672,151.206615&spn=0.006797,0.013561&iwloc=addr If this doesn't work, look for "Cross City Tunnel Eastbound, NSW, Australia" on http://maps.google.com/

Metrobest wrote:

Also, see below the overhead gantries on the harbour bridge regulating traffic flow. During the morning peak, the majority of the lanes are for inbound traffic and in the evening peak, the majority are outbound. I've always thought such as system would be beneficial on Dublin's key arteries as traffic you often see empty outbound lanes on roads like the N3 in the morning peak and vice versa.

It may work when you have lots of lanes on a straight road, but I can't see it working in Dublin. A third, tidal carriageway might.

Metrobest

Victor wrote:

Sorry Metrobest, could you provide a link to the SMH, its only fair..

www.smh.com.au

I think the lane regulation system would work on the M50, Stillorgan DC and other routes. These are city roads and need to be used as efficiently as possible.

It's not efficient to see two empty outbound lanes and two congested inbound lanes.

If the Sydney Harbour Bridge did not have the lane regulation in place it would snarl up.