On 09/12/2019 11:05, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 09:37:42 on Sun, 8 Dec 2019,
Graeme Wall remarked:
As for money to burn, it started as a toll road, but then got
sweptÂ* up into a government-funded "shovels ready" project to
stimulate theÂ* economyÂ* due to the construction jobs created.

And there was me thinking that after the M6T disaster all of the
constriction companies told HMG to "go swivel" when they sounded
themÂ* out about taking on the risk of the tolling

The difference with the A14, and why being a toll road was always a
rather dodgy public policy decision, is that it would effectively
haveÂ* a monopoly on that particular flow, something which could
never haveÂ* been said about the M6T. Think more like the Dartford
Crossing.
Â*AIUI it wasn't suggested as a monopoly as the plan was to have
throughÂ* traffic tolled, local traffic un-tolled.
Â*And the insurmountable problem with that was "how do you construct
it soÂ* that it is fair to local traffic without having a
non-negligible volumeÂ* of through traffic trying to become local
traffic and clogging up theÂ* local route, whilst leaving the through
route underused".

Which is the problem with all road-pricing schemes.

Didn't seem to bother the people funding the Dartford Crossing.

Don't recall a rat-run being available to avoid the Dartford crossing.

--
Graeme Wall
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