There's a Serious Case for Abolishing the Toll

L

Leper

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The motorway system around and near Dublin is not working. It's not value for money. In fact it's downright daylight robbery. If I were living nearer Dublin I'd be hounding my TD's for immediate abolition of the toll charges.

Later: Title changed as aluded to by @TomEdison (below)
 
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That might be a case for abolishing the toll; it's hardly a case for not paying it, which will make your situation worse, not better.

And it's not a very good case for abolishing the toll. If driving on the M50 costs less, the likely outcome is that it beomse more congested, not less.

To be clear, the function of the toll is not to keep the motorway system working; it's to pay for the construction and continuing maintenance of the bridge. Unless the bridge falls down, or is so degraded that it has to be closed, you're getting what you pay for with the toll.
 
Abolish and add the extra cost to motor tax. We all use the m50 directly or indirectly. For example. Many items bought in a shop in Kerry travelled there via the m50.
 
We all know what the problem is and what caused it. The lack of investment in infrastructure and the legal and political framework which allows staggering levels of delays in planning have been discussed here ad nauseum.
 
TomEdison said:
To be clear, the function of the toll is not to keep the motorway system working; it's to pay for the construction and continuing maintenance of the bridge. Unless the bridge falls down, or is so degraded that it has to be closed, you're getting what you pay for with the toll.
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What if the tolls collected far exceed the cost of maintenance?

Whatever about reducing demand on congested space in rush hour.

Doesn't make sense to be diverting traffic away from potentially efficient routes eg think of the East Link at off peak time, leading to more emissions etc
 
JoeRoberts said:
Abolish and add the extra cost to motor tax.
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Absolutely not! I seldom use the M50, paying for the dubious privilege when I do. The M50 BTW is only one of a number of tolled roads in the country. This may come as a shock to Dublin-centric posters here. I avoid tolled roads where possible and I pay more than enough motor tax as it is. Why should I subsidise those who choose to use them?
 
mathepac said:
should I subsidise those who choose to use them?
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Because you are using them all indirectly if you read my post before jumping on an anti Dublin rant . I rarely use it myself as not a Dub but the truck delivering my turkey to the shop is.
 
Whether or not there should be a toll (or whether it's too high or low) isn't the main issue here.

It's the sheer inequity of it.

I can travel to and from Liffey Valley on the M50 from South Dublin without paying a toll while my sister, travelling the same distance from north Dublin pays the toll twice. Is she seriously paying to cross a bridge?
 
If it's any relief to anybody here, I paid €12.00 a couple of years ago for use of 10kms of motorway in Spain having taken a wrong turn. Incidentally, Spanish motorists tend to avoid tolled roads which is why the tolled motorways are almost always empty there. No matter how many bridges on Spanish motorways (and there are many) the tolls are abolished more quickly there which gives rise to more questions here.
 
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JoeRoberts said:
Because you are using them all indirectly if you read my post before jumping on an anti Dublin rant . I rarely use it myself as not a Dub but the truck delivering my turkey to the shop is.
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Thus the cost of the toll is correctly included in your turkey. Why should I pay for it in increased motor tax? My turkey and my ham will raised in the West, butchered and sold in the West and neither will see hide nor hair of the M50. When I travel to see my grandchildren or indeed other family members over the festive season I won't be within an ass's roar of the the M50 at any stage, thankfully. I may travel on other tolled roads and if I do I'll pay those tolls. One family member may travel to visit with us and she'll (correctly) pay her own M50 toll.

My OP was not a rant just my measured response to a stupid idea.
 
mathepac said:
Why should I pay for it in increased motor tax?
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Simply because the roads benefit all the country. Just like people in the east paid for the fine roads in the west that P Flynn got built back in the day. But many have never travelled them. It's stupid though as you eloquently say, as usual.....
 
One can be eloquent (see my poetry elsewhere) or direct and honest. Here I'm not waxing lyrical.
 
Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone had an idea to build an outer orbital from Naas to Balbriggan.
;)
 
or if I could turbo-charge me toy drone to airlift me and the mutt past traffic-jams! Even if it was just little packages, we could do Santa runs remotely.
 
TomEdison said:
To be clear, the function of the toll is not to keep the motorway system working;
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The purpose of the fee-paying motorway systems, M50 etc, was to speed up traffic flows by taking traffic around and away from congested areas in towns in cities. If these motorways are failing in their purpose then there is no case for continuing to charge for their use.
 
mathepac said:
The purpose of the fee-paying motorway systems, M50 etc, was to speed up traffic flows by taking traffic around and away from congested areas in towns in cities. If these motorways are failing in their purpose then there is no case for continuing to charge for their use.
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I drive on the M50 almost every day. It does a magnificent job of taking traffic off other roads. The congestion on the M50 and elsewhere is a symptom of 40 years of bad planning which has left us with a dispersed low density Dublin surrounded by dormer towns, other regional cities that are too small and also have really bad traffic problems (yes, I'm talking about Galway), and ribbon development of one off housing which has killed most of the villages in rural Ireland. It's not possible to construct an efficient transport system to service that.

You want your McMansion or your 3 car driveway and big back garden in Suburbia? Fine, but you're going to have to sit in traffic to get there.
 
JoeRoberts said:
Exactly, that is why it is the main issue. All tolls should be scrapped and absorbed into car tax. It is penal on an arbitary subset of the population.
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With that logic I could consider the portion of the taxes I pay supporting public services in other counties as penal. Users of the tolled roads are direct beneficiaries of the investment that build those roads.

A motor tax based system would be far from fair as someone travelling 5k km a year the same as someone doing ten times that mileage.
 
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