For the avoidance of doubt,the northbound run on the tunnel and bridge should absolutely be tolled – and particularly so when the Western Harbour Tunnel opens to traffic about 2028. Failure to do so would be a recipe for congestion and constraint. In effect,you’d end up with a heavily congested “free” route and an empty tolled one. It will also leave taxpayers on the hook for a Western Harbour Tunnel tolled route that could go bust. That’s a bad outcome any way you look at it.
So,with the wrong question answered,we should turn our attention to the right question:What does a good tolling system,for the whole of Sydney,look like?
It’s important to establish some irrefutable facts that get conveniently forgotten. All infrastructure,including roads,cost money to build. The money must come from somewhere,and roads are never fully “paid for”. They need maintenance,they need upgrading and there are always new standards in safety and compliance to be met. If users don’t pay,then the taxpayer must foot the bill and that means less money for schools and hospitals,or higher taxes.
The main way we have paid for Sydney’s world-class motorway network until now is called facility-based tolling – where the road exists because the toll does. And the toll price is set to recover the cost of financing,designing,constructing and operating that road.
It has been a spectacularly successful model,delivering a quality network,decades faster than a reliance on taxpayer funding alone.
But while it was highly effective for building the network,it has flaws. It has created a patchwork of tolls that impose disproportionate and unfair costs on some transport users while providing no useful pricing signals to use the network more efficiently.