Friday, September 23, 2011

Someone gets it...

I have to go into darkest Essex tonight to visit relatives of Lady QM, it's always a good visit as they really look after us very well food and drink wise as well as enjoying long country walks which we appreciate all to well. Yet to get there we have to cross over the Dartford toll crossing on the M25 which has to be the biggest bottleneck on a main transport route ever devised, so much so that some people who ought to know better claim it as a traffic calming measure yet all it does is create a bottleneck for motorists going North or South across the river. This along with the current road widening going on in Essex on the M25 means that in future, it's only going to get worse.
BBC.
Tolls on the Dartford Crossing should be scrapped to help boost the local economy, a group representing public bodies and businesses has said.
The South East Local Enterprise Partnership (Selep) said charges "can have devastating effects on business."
The Department for Transport (DfT) wants to increase car tolls from £1.50 to £2 in November and £2.50 in 2012.
The crossing comprises a dual tunnel northbound and bridge southbound, linking Essex and Kent.
The local enterprise partnerships were set up to stimulate economic growth, replacing the publicly-funded regional development agencies.
George Kieffer, who chairs Selep, said: "It is not rocket science to see the toll booths act as a major traffic bottleneck which can have a huge knock on effect for the surrounding road network.
Yep, it might not be rocket science, but prising £40 million quid from the hands of politicians/ministries is never going to be easy. To them, it's all about the money, not the problems caused, after all the crossing was paid off years ago and the government reneged on the promise to scrap the tolls once it was paid. So somehow or other I cannot see Selep's call to have them scrapped falling on fertile ground.
Still it's nice to know that my opinions and others are being echoed by others with more clout than I have, though sadly I fear with the same result of being ignored by those who prefer a revenue stream to free flowing traffic.

6 annotations:

wiggiatlarge said...

Well of course the tolls were supposed to have ceased when the crossing was paid for ,this happened some time ago ,but of course we were taking a politicians word on this and instead of scrapping the toll they want to increase it,we should in cases like this be able to sue under the trade descriptions act.

John M said...

Just in the interests of inflaming the debate I would remind everyone that all bridge tolls in Scotland were abolished in 2009.

Henry North London 2.0 said...

Damn You mean I should have stayed in Tayside? The sodding tay bridge toll has gone forever? Even the forth road bridge toll? Christ Now I wish I had stayed in Dundee

James Higham said...

Dartford toll crossing on the M25 which has to be the biggest bottleneck on a main transport route ever devised

Blackwall Tunnel?

Henry North London 2.0 said...

They keep shutting the sodding blackwall tunnel and thats a 14 mile detour

Longrider said...

The same occurs with the Severn Bridge at peak times, but to a much lesser extent. I've never wasted forty minutes going nowhere fast on that crossing like I have at Dartford.

So, while I have no beef with the principle of tolls generally, this particular one is observably counter productive.