On Wed, 2 Jul 2014, Michael Scott wrote:

> People don't want to pay tolls but then they whinge about having to pay
> taxes.
>
> If there were tolls on the road you have the choice of using it or not and
> paying or not. Without tolls and with taxes funding roads you have no
> choice. It comes out of general revenue. I don't know that tolls on roads
> is the problem.
>
> The gridlock will occur because of increases in population and more cars on
> the road. The idea is to create a road system that alleviates gridlock.
> Does this alleviate gridlock or not?

But it doesn't.  Everywhere around the world, the average commute time is
45 minutes.  Regardless of where you are.  It's fundamental, because no
one wants to commute more than that, so they create whatever conditions
are necessary to achieve that commute time.  Live closer in.  Build more
dense housing.  Find a job closer to home.  Get a motorbike.

Building freeways just induces demand.  In 10 years time if the link is
built, the projections are that traffic will be absolutely no different
than it is today.  Given that it's not even going to shift 150,000 per
day, wouldn't it be more worthwhile wasting that $18B ($120,000 each for
those 150,000 regular users!  Bet they've not paid that much tax in 10
years) on something long term useful instead of getting the army to dig
ditches and fill them back up again?  Like perhaps train and freight links
(since this freeway is just for Lindsay fox, build him a dedicated train
line!).

--
Tim Connors