Apparently the M6 toll road has been deemed a failure.
Traffic jams around Birmingham are at least as bad as they were before the road was opened as motorists refuse to pay to use the 27-mile stretch which was intended to end gridlock on the M6.
Well, yes, if you take the M6 down to the M5 junction, it’s pretty atrocious, especially during the rush hours. What this doesn’t mention is the roadworks that are currently exacerbating the situation.
The price of the toll road has risen from £2 originally to £5 now. If I have to go south around Birmingham, I will always pay the fiver and enjoy the easy drive. It’s when I’m heading south west that I have to put up with the misery of the M6 as the toll road takes me away from the M5 unless I take the M42 and I gain nothing from doing that.
If there is any failure for me, it is that I know the relief from the congestion is temporary as once the two motorways rejoin, you are again caught up with the general clog getting to the M1.
What strikes me as odd about this report is the assertion that people aren’t willing to pay so therefore it is a failure. Surely, the whole idea is that the payment will deter many, making the drive clearer for those who value the time more than the money. In which case, it’s working precisely as planned. Or am I missing something?
The M6 toll was at best a sticking plaster solution. Living as I do on the Cheshire/Staffs borders motorway travel is a lottery of gridlocks.
Any fool looking at a map can see that a number of motorways (M5, M40, M6 from M1) converge south west of Brum. There is then one north-south M6 link up past Brum, through Staffordshire and through Cheshire until routes (M62) branch to Liverpool and Manchester taking traffic other ways off the M6.
Hence the problems between Birminghamm to Manchester, which won’t be fixed by an M6 toll which just moves one converging route up a bit. And at a cost of £10 per trip in a small campervan doesn’t help me a lot either!
I find it most useful heading south. That way I avoid the long queues through the roadworks to the M6/M5 junction.
“Surely, the whole idea is that the payment will deter many, making the drive clearer for those who value the time more than the money. In which case, it’s working precisely as planned. Or am I missing something?”
It’s the best fiver you can spend. You probably save it in reduced petrol from the time spent crawling along through Brum alone anyway!
UK petrol tax runs at around 60p/litre, plus VAT on that takes it up to 75p/litre. This works out at around 9.6p/mile for an average car. Remember that this, with road tax, pays for between 2 and 3 times the total cost of all UK road building and maintenance.
For the M6toll, one pays an additional £5.00 per car journey (£4.50 at weekends) for the full length of 20ish miles, or 25p/mile.
Thus, in addition to paying over twice the cost of road building and maintenance in petrol tax for typical car mileage, the M6toll charges one a further several times the fairly amortised cost of said road building and maintenance for that particular road (well, it would if they charged less and got more traffic).
I’m just about content to pay that £5, because I value my time. However, it is surely the sort of robbery that makes Dick Turpin look like a good deal. Also, yesterday the average of over 800 lane metres all to oneself for the whole M6toll journey certainly makes for low risk of collision; back on the M6 and later on the M42, one was lucky to get one tenth of that at best.
Having yesterday driven from Edinburgh to nearly London on the M6/M40 route (the best route going), I can tell you there are no where near enough roads between the Manchester and Birmingham conurbations, for the traffic actually wanting to drive there. It’s been like that for years.
And the government has the cheek to put up all those roadsigns (on the non-motorway diversions one is forced to take from time to time because of roadworks, and crashes that take for ever to clear up) warning us of the high rate of deaths and serious injuries on those inadequate A-roads.
Given that the death rate per vehicle mile on motorways is only 1/3 of that on single-lane A-roads, it is quite clear to me who is doing all that killing and maiming. Those who take the money from petrol tax and just blow it, including on road signs saying ‘you’re going to die by driving here’.
Best regards
I think the point you are missing is that what you currently consider to be a choice is intended to become a compulsion. I’m quite surprised at you to be honest given how perceptive you are.
General road tolls is THE masturbatory fantasy for any control freak politician (i.e. all of them).
I have yet to hear a good reason why this road just could not have been built out of the massive tax take from road users as a straightforward addition to the network. I have not heard a good reason, but there are volumes of politicized, bigotted bad ones!
Actually, I have no great ideological objection to pay as you go road pricing. That said, I would object if it was on top of all the various taxes that we pay to use the roads. And I would vigorously object to any system that used surveillance to collect the tolls.
I’ve experienced first hand how toll roads work in France and it works well. If the UK had a similar system and no road tax, no massive fuel duty, then paying for what we use when we use it would be an equitable solution.
Back in the real world… The M6 toll is a choice and as such, that’s how I treat it. I happily part with a fiver to zip past the roadworks and clog-ups for twenty odd miles. It’s no different to paying for the Severn crossings (although I can cross those on the bike for free).
I suspect it was a “suck it and see”. A private company took the risks with no real risk to government if it all went tits up. If it was simply a relief road with no charging it would probably be as congested as the M6.
Any system of road tolling is absolutely to be on top of existing taxes. Nothing else is conceivable. You can conceive it of course, as can I and we could argue the pros and cons of various schemes. But our arguments are irrelevant to the spiteocrats who determine policy.
I don’t travel the Birmingham M6 on any regular basis but I have on a number of occasions pointedly not used the toll road, accepting the slower journey. It pleases me to think that enough people feel the same way to hit the “private” investors where it hurts. Keep a discrete eye though, in case the “private” investors are quietly bailed out in a few years time.
No, no, no, no, no to any sort of tolls on roads. If this scheme “worked” – if it was profitable for its operators – it would be the thin end of a very thick wedge. Perhaps I’m being a bit of a drama queen but I can’t help thinking of this as a modern day enclosures act. “Common land” – the roads which anybody can currently use – being parcelled up and handed over to greedy “private” interests (in cahoots with government).
A bit like parking on many towns these days in fact!
Hence my comment about the real world.
My concerns with a road pricing scheme are not about private operators making a profit (that’s why they are in business, after all) but about the state using it as a means of tracking us more than they already do.
You have a point here because we have already paid for the infrastructure, so paying again is taking the piss at the best. However, where a private operator has built the infrastructure and uses the tolls to regain the capital expense, pay for maintenance and make a profit, there’s nothing wrong. But that does mean they take the hit if it fails.
I like the French system. Privately owned motorways that are well maintained and a joy to use. I am happy to contribute to the owners’ profits as they provide me with an excellent service. I also use the telepeage system as having a rhd vehicle means getting out of the car at the toll booths.
On the other hand, if I’m on a bike holiday, I’ll take the D roads for the pleasure and it costs me no tolls at all.
The reason it is a fail is because it is not making the money they hoped. They hoped more would use it so they could then say that is what people wanted and as it was a roaring success we would see them cropping up all over the place and then we would not have a choice.