Sydney has become Australia’s most tolled city courtesy of road building programs that developed nearly a dozen toll roads without much regard to any overall system linking them.
Motorists now pay around $2.5 billion a year across the patchwork network, and under current contractual arrangements with private firms that is expected to total $196 billion between now and 2060.
Former ACCC boss Allan Fels has released his interim review into toll roads. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Now, in the first holistic and independent review of the city’s toll system, the former competition watchdog chairman Professor Allan Fels has attempted to find a road to the future by highlighting the current problems.
Among the identified failings: the lopsided financial impact of tolls is greatest in western Sydney; tolls are higher than necessary or desirable; dominant toll road concessions given to Transurban could adversely affect competition for tolling concessions; high tolls may be a disincentive for motorists to use the shiny new infrastructure, and important details of public-private partnerships arrangements on toll setting are not disclosed to the public.
Fels recommended the introduction of two-way tolling on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Harbour Tunnel and the Eastern Distributor, an extra infrastructure charge for motorists using major tunnels or the bridge, charging motorists less the longer they drive on toll roads and new network tolls be set by a new bureaucracy named State TollCo rather than via individual concession agreements. The latter is a big change which would require legislation to clear the parliament.
The toll system is so complicated, and the politics of the issue so fraught, that tweaking rather than larger reform may be the only real possibility.
And while Fels was trenchant in his criticism of current arrangements, it should not be forgotten that although public-private partnerships involving collaborations between a government agency and a private-sector company have fallen into disfavour, many multi-billion dollar public infrastructure projects would have remained unbuilt if cash-strapped governments had not sought to spread the risk and ease the burden of up-front capital costs imposed on the public purse.
“The legacy of past decisions made within the context of public-private partnership arrangements is what we now have to deal with,” Fels said. “Eminent economist and commentator Professor John Quiggin has aptly described the problem as ‘unscrambling the toll road egg’.”
Why the Robin Hood-style plan to fix Sydney’s tolling system could be a tough sell
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11.03.2024
Sydney has become Australia’s most tolled city courtesy of road building programs that developed nearly a dozen toll roads without much regard to any overall system linking them.
Motorists now pay around $2.5 billion a year across the patchwork network, and under current contractual arrangements with private firms that is expected to total $196 billion between now and 2060.
Former ACCC boss Allan Fels has released his interim review into toll roads. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Now, in the first holistic and independent review of the city’s toll system, the former competition watchdog chairman Professor Allan........
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