Stolen from my favourite Facebook group (warning: not really safe for work).

Literally my thoughts as I try to navigate around Brisbane. A trip from the west to the airport can involve up to half a dozen tolls if you do it wrong.

  • Madison420@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    To be fair I like the sentiment but the message is just wrong at least in the United States. Here toll roads are privately built roads in conjunction with public entities. They contract generally defines a certain period where tolls can be collected to recoup the cost of the road with profit so say a road costs 5 mil they might be able to collect for 10 years with a estimated value of 40mil.

    It’s crazy and nonsensical when the smart money is in public funding of grand national projects like high speed rail with a focus on cargo and intercity travel preferably underground. Japan is doing a huge project that moved most of their services into deep underground tunnels and I think that’s a smart thing to do for the us.

    • BadlyDrawnRhino @aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Similar here, but the contract periods tend to be much longer. Like 50 to 100 years before they’ll go toll-free, which is just absurd really. And they’re not fully private ventures, taxpayer money is spent on these bits of infrastructure.

      And the worst part is they don’t really do anything to improve traffic long-term. During peak hour, it’s not unusual to jump in the tunnel only to be stuck in the same gridlock traffic as you’d be in anyway, only you just paid 6 bucks for the privilege.