#NSWLabor and #ChrisMinns are promising a 'toll cap' for #Sydney motorists in the lead up to the NSW election next month.
After all, we have an Opal fare cap for public transport riders so why not a toll cap for drivers?
Well there are a bunch of reasons...
@jedsetter agree in general. But have you thought about the angle of incentivising people to take tollroads rather than local roads being a good thing? Often these new motorways have been justified this way - Northconnex = less traffic on Pennant Hills Road for example - in theory.
I think I'm saying something like - in the absence of a rational holistic road charging scheme where we charge people more for Pennant Hills Road than the tunnel, because the latter has more negative externalities /
@jedsetter in pedestrian safety & delay, noise, maybe even energy use and air quality (why can't I write comments as long as yours?)
Anyway, from the point of view that some people are going to drive either way and are better off on the M4 than Parramatta road, maybe it's not such a negative distortion. Just a big distraction from what we could be doing (improving public transport for those people).
@jroper Great point!
I'm using mastodon in browser. I think some apps give you a smaller character limit...which doesnt suit me! haha.
Yes, we are given toll roads and promised the return of 'stroads' into neighbourhood streets but it doesn't seem to happen. Ever.
I would rather see road diets on all these bypassed roads (Canterbury Rd, Parra Rd, Stoney Creek, King St etc etc) that would make them untenable as through-routes. Light rail could play a huge roll here.
Another option is, as per Pennant Hills road, fine trucks for taking the surface routes. Trucking companies will go with what is cheapest for them so a bit of stick goes a long way here.
I also would support broader toll reform that levied road use charges by weight*distance and paid tolls to Transurban from that pool.
I think peak/offpeak pricing is a given. Halve, or less, the toll at night when the time saving is minimal to get people off local roads.
Or, failing anything as creative as all that, even a system like the current one that just dishes out toll subsidies more broadly.
I can't think of a much worse policy than making tolls free for the top 1% of users only. I don't think labor have an objective to improve anything here.
@jedsetter Ah it looks like it's an instance setting.
Yes the Pennant Hills Rd fines are basically a really clunky, uneven implementation of differential road charging... not efficient but perhaps something that will open the window of politically feasible options later.
Yeah I don't think their objective is good but I don't think it's as obviously negative for induced demand as it seems, since the top 1% of users must be users who are already inelastic in mode choice and driving a lot. /....
@jroper I definitely think they're banking on more people thinking they're in the 1% than actually are! Same logic behind stage 3 tax cuts and every regressive tax policy ever...
@jedsetter unless it leads more people into that 1%. Or, just thought of this, more people may think it will apply to them than it really does, creating a more subtle negative effect.
And Labour would probably hope for that as it increases the voting popularity of the proposal...