Tolls on the M4 and elsewhere are an expensive mistake. There are far easier ways to raise the money needed, writes Conor Faughnan.
After generations of underinvestment we are at long last beginning to have a modern road network. The pristine new motorways opening up across the country are long-term strategic assets which will pay us back many times over.
However, they are significantly devalued by the fact that the National Roads Authority (NRA) and the Government have decided to pepper them with toll gates.
Tolls, as the Automobile Association (AA) has always maintained, are a crude, clumsy and inherently inefficient way of funding roads. They cause delays and frustration on the motorways themselves and, even more significantly, a great deal of congestion and disruption in the towns and villages which the new roads were supposed to relieve.
Tolls seem like a good idea at first glance because they provide a handy mechanism for repaying private investors. They enable the NRA to pass on risk to the private sector and to get roads built without having to provide the capital. But the diversion problem is a major drawback for which they have no solution.
The opening of the M4 motorway earlier this month provides us with a clear example. The charge for a car is €2.40, and it seems that occasional users will find this reasonable enough and will pay it. But it is abundantly clear from the very start that regular users and especially heavy-vehicle drivers will not.
The Irish Road Haulage Association has been a fervent critic, and a number of bus and courier companies have said that they will not be using the new road. Trucks continue to trundle through Enfield and Kinnegad to the intense frustration of the local people.
The town of Drogheda has had the same experience. The toll on the bypass was imposed despite the opposition of the local people and has perpetuated the continuing and expensive congestion problem in the town. Undaunted, the NRA is set to make the same mistake again in Fermoy, Limerick, Waterford, Ballinasloe and elsewhere.
Diverted traffic presents a real cost in terms of congestion, road maintenance, air quality and increased road-safety risk. None of this matters to the NRA's finances, but cost pushed on to local people is not the same thing as money saved.
When the consequences of diversion are factored in and the costs are measured more holistically it becomes clear that tolls are not the magic solution they appear to be. In the early 1990s five separate studies of this issue were commissioned by the Department of Transport in Britain. They concluded there was no level of toll charge where the disbenefits associated with diversion did not exceed the benefits.
The AA does not oppose the involvement of the private sector in the roads programme, nor does it deny that they must get a return on their investment. But there are far better ways of doing it.
For many years the AA has been trying to persuade the Government that tolls are more trouble than they are worth and that alternatives exist. We have been advocating a "shadow tolls" system.
Essentially this means that there is no charge at point of use but the State pays the contractor based on the amount of traffic using the road and on criteria like maintenance and quality. This enables the State to make use of private-sector capital and acumen and completely avoids the collateral damage caused by diversion.
It has to be paid for, of course, but there are ways to do that. For example, were the Government to decide to impose an infrastructure levy of 2 cent per litre on petrol and diesel it would raise approximately €90 million a year. This is more than the Government currently gets out of all the toll schemes in the country combined.
It also spreads the cost right across the transport sector. These new roads are essential pieces of infrastructure for the whole economy; they are not being built just to indulge motorists.
The NRA has become evangelical in its defence of tolls. They point out that tolls are used extensively on the Continent, especially in France. This is true, but it is important to note that in France this is done instead of, not as well as, the annual road tax that we pay.
It is also crucial to note that the French have more sense than to put a toll on a bypass. The toll is removed where the alternative road is unsuitable. In its wisdom, the NRA is doing the exact opposite here.
To be fair to the current Government the motorist is now getting far more value for the taxes paid. An AA analysis of tax figures for the year 1998 showed that the total amount of tax taken from car-owners was €2.92 billion. In the same year the total amount of money invested in roads or any other transport-related matters was €502 million, or about 17 per cent of the tax take.
This year the tax take comes from a larger base of motorists and adds up to €4.5 billion, of which just over €3 billion or 66 per cent is being spent on roads and public transport. Much better.
But this does not justify tolls or make them less clumsy. If the Government continues on its current course we will wind up with an expensive white elephant.
Conor Faughnan is public affairs manager for AA Ireland