I just knew when I saw this story on the morning news:
David Cameron is expected to call for much more private investment in England’s road network.
He will say tolls for new roads are one option, alongside attracting more money from pension funds and other investors.
…that the Guardianista would be lathered up into a delicious frenzy of righteous fury, and I was not to be disappointed. The comments below the line are the usual stuff. You could pretty much write them yourself without looking and you’d probably score a hit.
Having ridden and driven in France extensively over the past three decades, I have some experience of the private management of roads. It works. Of course, they are funded through tolls, which in this country would not only be something of an anathema as we have already paid for their construction through general taxation, so we own them, not the government (and that mindset will be very difficult to overcome) – and let’s never forget that government does not have a groat to its name – it is always our money they are spending. Also if the Dartford crossing is anything to go by, the toll collection would be managed in such a piss-poor, incompetent manner that road chaos would inevitably ensue – or, of course, GPS vehicle tracking which would be the control freaks’ wet dream come true. It’s not hugely better over at the Severn Crossing during the morning rush. On the French system, credit card machines (à la M6 Toll) ease matters as does the télépéage, allowing travellers to drive along a reserved lane and avoid any queues, providing they are willing to share their travel arrangements with the motorway company. That said, in all those years, only once or twice have I encountered stationary traffic queuing back and one of those was at the end of the A71 at Clermont Ferrand one summer when there was a problem with the toll machines. It was August the 1st, when the Parisians rush south and no one minds if they get held up for a while…
All of this is by the by, what was predictably amusing was the response. There was no attempt to think about the possible effects – for good or bad – merely a knee-jerk reaction because it was proposed by an evil Tory and involves private companies rather than the all seeing, all caring, all loving state. More evidence, if we needed it, that these folk really are conservative reactionaries, a badge of honour they would be horrified to wear, yet it fits so well.
I generally find there to be a perfectly decent “A” road running more or less alongside most stretches of “peage” and try and find my way onto those, although French signage can often make it an absolute bugger to avoid the toll road.
My all time “favorite” is trying to get out of Calais en route for Paris. All roads seem to lead to the peage. ENGLISH – THIS WAY!!!
The Portuguese make it even more difficult. When they built the motorway from Vilar Formoso to the coast, the old N16 all but disappeared with the short stretches left all leading to the new motorway.
Even as a small-state enthusiast I see the provision of a basic road network for access to properties and local travel as a legitimate function of the state, given the general benefit and difficulty of attributing and collecting cost.
In principle I see no problem with “premium roads” for fast, long-distance travel being privately built and owned and subject to tolls. Perhaps it’s a pity we didn’t go down this road when we started building motorways.
However, given the current extortionate level of road-user taxation, any attempt to introduce tolling without an obvious reduction in other costs is going to prove extremely unpopular.
Not to mention the potential “Big Brother” implications…
This point was going through my mind – the “we have already paid” point. And it is a legitimate one. However, I have no ideological opposition to an arrangement such as the French have.
Yes, we have already paid.. so we have an asset. It seems like now there is some mind to extract a different kind of value from that asset. Where currently we had free enjoyment of our asset, we may in future have to pay to enjoy it (be it directly as individuals, or with a group rate paid out of taxation). In return for that we presumably get a bunch of cash up front or some potholes filled in.. or a tunnel from Worksop to Scunthorpe.
Aren’t we, essentially, just entering into a big sale and leaseback deal with the M62?
I think the French system is fine, but I just don’t believe we will get something like that. This government will continue screwing us for every penny on fuel tax, and on top of this will sell off a few prime motorway stretches to corporate buddies, to screw us a little more on top.
Also they will most likely try to enforce a tracking device on everyone, which they will want to use to (a) fine us for speeding, (b) monitor us everywhere we go. I’ve got a suspicion that this and the roads above is part of an EU plan, which this government or the last signed up to, and Dave, being a staunch Europhile will want to implement it to show how much we’re at the (rotten) heart of Europe.
So, much as private roads is quite libertarian, I don’t think a libertarian should rush in to support this plan. For one thing, because we know the government is not at all libertarian.
I tend to share your concerns. I don’t trust any UK government not to see this as a means to tag us all. The French, despite having a more socialist outlook do seem to have a better approach to personal liberty. Their system is a good one and it works. That it won’t over here is down to the venal nature of our politicians and civil servants, not because it isn’t a fair system that could work perfectly well.
Can someone remind me how well the M6 toll around Birmingham is working?
I ask the question honestly, not sarcasticly.
Personally, I’m dead against the principle of privately owned roads, unless already on private land. Call me a commie if you wish. Don’t bloody care.
I’ve used the M6 Toll a few times. It’s fine. Definitely worth avoiding the congestion around the M6/M5 interchange.
The original Turnpikes were privately built and owned and they improved the road system enormously, the old way of doing things with parishes responsible for road upkeep was hopeless. We have a somewhat similar system now, just upgraded from parish to county level and it doesn’t really work anymore either.
The M6 Toll is a fine road and it works extremely well. Problem is when you meet the standard motorway system at each end and it is very expensive – OK if you need some certainty about getting around Birmingham – otherwise you need to think carefully about whether it is value for money for your particular journey. As for me, sometimes I use it and sometimes I don’t, i.e it gives me a choice. Nobody forces anybody to use it.
It only works extremely well because no bugger uses it!
Who’s going to spend £5.50 for a one-way journey unless they’re either loaded or on expenses?
That’s rather the point, though, isn’t it? You make a decision about what is more valuable, the money or your time. Most value the money presumably. Those who value the time have a nice easy journey.
Yes, but it doesn’t even pay the interest on the debt, let alone repay any of the capital cost, and given that it’s scarcely used it doesn’t deliver the wider economic benefits that it would if it was free to use (or much cheaper). It’s fundamentally uneconomic and a very poor advertisement for private roads.
I suspect that this is as much to do with it being only half a job. If it was extended to London at one end and, say, Manchester at the other, more people would use it, I suspect. The French system isn’t cheap, but it is extensively used, yet it still flows freely.
Yes, what’s the point in paying through the nose to avoid getting snarled up in traffic on one part of a long journey in which you’re going to get snarled up at three or four other points anyway.
No we will get aguvmint version of the monumental screw-up called “Railtrack”
Lots of crooks will get rich, and we’ll get screwed.
There’s been a lot of consternation today about the fact that the Dartford crossing tolls were not ended when the thing was paid for.
Of course what they seem to have conveniently forgotten is that it was a certain Ken Livingstone who decided to keep the tolls going at Dartford.
Yep, I preferred the A roads too – more interesting.
Over at the Adam Smith Institute, I have already given my opinion on the road toll issue. In this, I am perhaps with Longrider’s unthinkingly small-c conservative Guardianistas: but actually there is more to it than that.
(i) Government spends far to much; the lost opportunity cost is substantial. Here we have government deciding not to raise taxes to fund its profligacy, but to spend less on what is useful. This means they will have more of our money to waste (by not spending it on benefit to taxpayers), including that which goes into their back pockets. And those back pockets are filled for political party benefit by corporatism: that is with big business for the right wing and unions for the left.
(ii) Concerning tolls, this would presumably (as in France) go mainly on long-distance and motorway quality roads. The additional pricing would force (I don’t think that is too strong a word) the less well off to use other roads. It is worth remembering that the fatality rate (per unit distance) on motorway quality roads is around one third of that on out-of-town A roads. Thus, not only would tolls introduce faster journeys for the better off, they would introduce safer journeys too. Though I am one of the better off (as determined by my use of the M6 Toll rather than the M6 queue-class), this pricing of safety is not what I want to see (on top of that already in car prices).
(iii) It is very difficult to see how the ‘private’ provision of roads will actually introduce that free market (and hence price competitiveness) that is desirable. This is hypothetically as a move away from the inflexibility and incompetence of government at the margin, which overcomes the possibly beneficial efficiencies of scale. The trouble is that the planning process, land acquisition and overseeing ‘fair’ toll pricing will all interfere with a free market. On top of this, toll collection delay and cost at boundaries will force less boundaries, and hence less of a free market and more government-licensed (regional) monopolies. Again, though I favour much more localism in government, I don’t want that through paying more for more local ‘government’ but no less for national government.
(iv) There are many other targets (for moving from government supply to free-market supply) that have much greater practicality, than does a widespread roll-out of toll roads as a major part of our transport infrastructure. These other targets include (believe it or not) much of the provision of healthcare (though excluding A&E) and of education. Why go for privatisation where it is more difficult to obtain true benefit, when there are other privatisations offering easier access to true benefit?
Returning to France and its motorways, many of the tolls (IIRC) stop well short of the areas of higher density traffic and more urbanisation: ie those places where more (and better) roads are most necessary. Thus, they seem to have a policy somewhat against long-distance road traffic. I wonder if that is something to do with the unionisation of rail and internal air public transport? If that country of tolls (and TGV) is really an example to us in the UK, on how to have more of a free market, can we have their national health policy? And first, please!
Best regards
Actually, I think your objections are perfectly reasonable – given the general level of competence we can expect from UK government. My issue with the Guardianista is that they object without having thought it through – it’s the knee-jerk reaction (even if this time they have a point) that I am commenting upon here.
All of that said, I do believe, given the right circumstances, that the idea has merit – I just don’t trust the buggers not to screw it and us.
Having read the article and some of the comments i was about to comment when my copy of Private Eye arrived, and lo the first item was an editorial on the same subject.
In essence it says much of what i would have in that with no money to spend, looking good becomes a priority and that this is by any other name a PFI project and that considering PFI has been slated as piss poor in respect of the value it gives the tax payer by various select committees how they think that will change now as it never did in the past is a mystery,this is just as the last lot did (and this lot increasingly follow) Brown and now Osborne have a reduction in debt target by keeping capital projects ‘off the books’ it looks good but we all pay way into the future at inflated rates, after what has happened to various hospitals nationwide you would think they would they would back of something that has been proved a scam, but no,as long as it looks good sod the taxpayer and hope they dont notice.