Hauliers' support boosts opposition to tolls

Opposition to toll charges on the proposed new crossing of the River Suir at Waterford received a boost this week when the Irish Road Haulage Association came out strongly against such charges.

The National Roads Authority (NRA) is currently designing the second crossing of the Suir to alleviate what it acknowledges is chronic regional traffic congestion entering Waterford from the north, east and west via the current bridge.

The second crossing is to be developed as part of the proposed bypass of Waterford city on the N25 between Rosslare and Cork.

However, the NRA has earmarked this new crossing and the M9 Waterford-to-Dublin motorway, which is also expected to link in with the new bridge, as projects which would be built utilising a public/private partnership. Such roads are to be paid for by a toll imposed on users.

The authority has indicated that there would be two tolls on most new motorways, £1.10 for journeys of about 30 km, and £1.65 for longer journeys. The highest toll for lorries would be about £3.50 plus VAT.

But the Irish Road Haulage Association has come out firmly against the tolls, saying they will be resisted by hauliers. According to the president of the association, Mr Gerry McMahon, the proposed roads network should be built first, before the consideration of tolls.

Mr McMahon told The Irish Times that it would be unfair to put tolls on sections of motorways or bridges pending completion of inter-urban routes. Until the routes were completed in full, he said, the new stretches of road would simply ease traffic up to the next bottleneck.

The proposed toll on the new crossing has already been condemned as unfair and discriminatory by a local Fianna Fail TD, Mr Brendan Kenneally, and the Progressive Democrats' candidate in the next general election, Mr Oliver Clery.

Mr Kenneally said he had no difficulty with the principle of tolling new roads, but he felt that putting a toll on the new crossing of the Suir was unfair. "Waterford's one crossing of the Suir makes it the most deficient of the five major cities in the country. There are several crossings of the Shannon at Limerick, as well as the Corrib at Galway and the Lee in Cork. In Cork they provided the Lee tunnel, and nobody in any of these places is being asked to pay a toll."

An average of 30,000 vehicles a day currently use the existing bridge, many of them carrying commuters, shoppers and others who do business in the city, and a toll on the bridge would amount to a tax on entering and leaving the city, he said.

Already at an advanced stage of planning, the 27 km bypass will take traffic on the N25 Rosslare-Cork route away from Waterford city. The project is one of 11 road-building programmes for which the Government is seeking private partners.

Mr Kenneally said there was no reason why the lack of a toll should delay the project. "There could even be tolls such as `shadow tolls' which would involve a private firm building the crossing but having the tolls paid by Government."