The end of the road for toll-free driving
Daily Express, 10th December 2003

We do it when we fly. We do it when we go by train. So, I suppose, it's about time we learnt to do it when we drive – pay more for a superior service.

Yesterday's opening of the M6 toll road around Birmingham marked the start of the division of the UK's roads between tourist class and business class. Other countries have been doing it for years. In France and Italy, as holidaymakers know, motorists decide whether they want to stump up extra money for taking the quick route on the motorway or whether they want to stick to the A roads. In Britain, some motorways will be faster than others.

It will take some time for people to get used to it. They may well not like it. They may well ask why they should pay more as they had assumed that transport was paid for out of general taxation. Slowly but steadily we are moving into an era where income tax provides only the most basic public services.

Pay-as-you-go will increasingly be the norm. Toll roads are the most controversial part, largely because of the environmental damage caused whenever a new road is built. The M6 relief road runs through four Sites of Special Scientific Interest and protestors say the work to build it has severely damaged one of them, Chasewater Heath

There are other concerns, such as whether new roads, particularly motorways, generate traffic of their own. The much-lampooned M25 around London proves that point, as it is constantly widened to meet increasing demand.

Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, suggested that the 27-mile M6 toll road, which has come into being nearly 25 years after the idea was first proposed, might be a one-off. But he insisted it did provide good value for money. "At £2 a car, I think many drivers may decide that, for the journey time, it would be something worth doing - I certainly would," he said.

Many people who have been stuck in gridlock on the outskirts of England's second city would agree that an exception should be made in this case. The operator of the new road claims that it will save motorists approximately 45 minutes on an average journey time.


There is already one example of road pricing – the congestion charge inside London. For all the sound and fury before it was introduced in February the experiment has proved a considerable success. Drivers might have bridled at paying £5 to drive into the centre of the capital, but traffic numbers have gone down by the 10-20per cent that Mayor Ken Livingstone was looking for. As a result, everyone has benefited.

This is market forces working tandem with state intervention for the greater good. Durham already has a similar scheme, on a miniature scale. Other towns across the UK are planning to follow suit.

The other idea, as Darling has hinted at, is for driving on motorways and trunk roads to be rationed according to the time of day. Just as it costs more to travel by train during rush hour, so we may be required to be pay extra for using our major roads when they are at their most crowded. The hope is that we would be more prepared to stagger our journeys, spreading the burden on our overused streets.

Back in 1997, the Labour government had a stated objective to get more people out of their cars and onto public transport – although John Prescott insists he did not put it in such stark terms. So bad were our Tubes and buses (at least in the southeast) and our trains (everywhere) that this was dropped. The aim should always have been to improve public transport first – something that is taking a very long time.

In the last few years ministers have been far more stealthy, and far more sensible, in trying to achieve its ends. Car discs and petrol taxes have been geared towards environmental objectives, punishing the guzzlers. But much more should be done in this area. The issue should not be whether we have cars, but what type of cars and when and how we use them.

There is one, sometimes forgotten, bigger question. What about equity or fairness? Should we really encourage car use in particular areas and at particular times for the comfortably off? The whole point of income tax is that everyone who works pays it, in proportion to the amount they earn, and that everyone enjoys the fruit of it, irrespective of how much they earn.

A balance will have to be struck. We must not allow pay-as-you-go to substitute for proper investment. But where it helps to reduce congestion, to spread the load, it should be selectively encouraged. The bottom line, however, is comfort, convenience and price. When, or if, it ever becomes cheaper, faster and more enjoyable to travel by train most of us would choose that option. That destination remains a long way away.


This article first appeared in the Daily Express and may not be reproduced without permission.