Increasing tolls when cost of operations at booths is plummeting

In France the tolls reduce over time, but arent removed from what i gather. Italy seems to be the same, and in both cases tolls are far higher than in Ireland because nearly all motorways are tolled.

But yea, it is sortof pulling the ps that they are going for the highest possible toll rise , linking to an inflation rate which is largely food and energy related, and not really linked to their ability to cover finance repayments and minimal enough running costs.

Their main maintenance cost is linked to oil prices - asphalt - admittedly.

When was the last time a tolled road was resurfaced and when is it due again?

The toll rises are a blatant money grab and will result in more costs to the state as more people will avoid the safe motorway and use local roads. In 2018 a fatal crash cost €1.7m and a serious crash was €400k, how many more crashes will result from this increase?

Travel the M1 Northroute the surface is RAF in parts for a long time

To be fair I would drive less and I moved house closer to work to avoid tolls.

I drive an EV and I get 50-75% off toll prices and about 80% off fuel equivalent costs due to efficient EV, but I still moved closer to work to remove toll and reduce commute and wear and tear on car. I know many don't have the option and some areas have no tolls while others pass through 2 different tolls on the way to work.

They are an inefficient way to collect taxes and waste a lot of time on billing and accounts and letters and staff, they do slightly help reduce unnecessary trips particularly through the port tunnell at peak times.

We are now being tripled taxed for driving, tax on petrol/diesel, motor tax and tolls all 3 of these have gone up in the last while in our supposed cost of living crisis at what point is the M50 and other roads that are tolled paid for and at what point can we say enough is enough? If there was decent public transport available people would use it but the majority of the country simply has not got it. Where the hell are our taxes going?

The state is one of the biggest hypocrites when it comes to price hikes. Think how many times you hear politicians criticising private enterprises for putting up prices.

I was under the impression that toll pays for the road I'm driving on. That at least being the logical reason as to why I (the active user of it) am paying it rather than it being charged out of general tax base.

And 99% of the cost has been incurred, the ongoing maintenance is a fraction of the cost. So yes hiking that to inflation seems an insult.

We are all just used to being taken for a ride.

We do pay for this infrastructure, we pay income taxes, motor taxes, carbon taxes, VAT, Stamp duty, DiRT, CAT, CGT, Corpo tax, property tax. The issue here is very little money gets ring fenced it goes into one big pot and this year as a population we paid more than our fair fecking share to cover the cost of the M50 and every other toll bridge going. As a citizen I would like to know what exactly is our taxes paying for I see zero benefits from it from where I am if I have to use a state resource it usually costs me more as I use it.

Most are 30 years from opening. The last to open were the Limerick Tunnel and M7/M8 in 2010.

The M1 from 2003 would be the next to lapse assuming it is 30 also, however that contract was odd in that a different bit of untolled road was built later so it may not be the same