Scrap road tolls and put meters in vehicles

THE way to prevent traffic rat-running to avoid paying tolls at the Watergrasshill bypass is to adopt the means used by most other countries.

This is to discourage all traffic except local traffic by road closures, one-way systems, width restrictions, traffic humps, chicanes, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, speed restrictions, pinch-points and so on.

But this is not going to happen here because of the obsession with maximising traffic speed and volume without regard to costs and consequences.

And it won’t happen because the motorist comes before safety and environmental considerations, not to mention tranquillity for residents or danger to children and vulnerable road-users.

This is just one of many problems toll roads create. The money raised by tolls will never pay for the construction costs of the road. Using figures published in the Irish Examiner, it would take 25 years at zero interest.

The way forward is road charging using in-vehicle metering. This provides fairness and flexibility in applying different rates according to vehicle, time of day and stretch of road.

However, transport planners should be looking ahead in the context of the lifetime of transport equipment and infrastructure, which means 20 or 30 years into the future.

If politicians did this, rather than just thinking of the next election and their business buddies, they would be building electric railways and tramways and reducing traffic rather than wasting money on building roads which are only going to generate more and more traffic without creating any real benefit.

Michael Job

Rossnagrean

Glengarriff

Co Cork