The Cost of Inferior Infrastructure

The Pacific Highway has been dodgy for forty years. All NSW state governments have known it, but none have attacked the issue with a complete solution that involved putting a dual carriageway all the way from Sydney to the Queensland border. Travellers continue to pay for that ineptness today.

My sister was heading up to the North Coast for a holiday and got caught behind the big accident outside of Buladelah. The detour took four hours and added an extra 200 kms on to their trip.

It is no secret that the Pacific Highway does not fulfil the needs of travellers. It should be a dual carriageway with one speed limit the whole way up - no traffic lights. It is an important road which connects the Brisbane and Sydney economies. It is the NSW state government's disgrace that the Pacific Highway is still dominated by stretches of windy road with room for one car running either way.

Rather than invest in much needed transportation infrastructure, we instead get politicians blathering off how they will increase punitive measures - double demerit points; even increasing fines to ludicrous levels.

I have a better idea. Build the infrastructure that is needed. Bite the political bullet and do it. If it is costly, then remove the federal government's ability to tax income, and use that to build the needed transportation infrastructure.

The US embarked on a massive transportation project in the 1950s to connect the major cities together through a highway system. Originally intended to aid the movement of military equipment from coast to coast, it has had the added benefit of integrating what were once isolated regional economies.

Now it is four hours between Washington DC and New York by car. The North-East American economy is integrated from Boston to DC. Australia is dotted by the provincial and often isolated economies of the major cities. They should be far more integrated than they are. One of the reasons is because we have such crap infrastructure.

Permalink, The Cost of Inferior Infrastructure, Jan 2006, cam
ranomatic: Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike: The dead tree January version of Car and Driver has a feature on the Turnpike, which predates the US interstate highway system.  If you admire utility, it\'s a beautiful thing.  Not much for scenery though.

If you are going to emulate the Turnpike, why not do what they did in New Jersey and build it new?
ranomatic: A related article: I hope I got this link right.   Union rejects highway toll charges.

Apparently, the TWU has a theory that since the road was built with tax money, any toll charged for improvements would be \"double dipping\" by the government.  How do they expect any road could be maintained and improved without raising additional funds?

For the entire Sydney to Brisbane trip, the toll could be up to $70AU.  At first glance, this seems expensive, especially compared to free.  Looling closer and accounting for the distance (~1000km), this is cheap.  On the New Jersey Turnpike (from my previous post), a trip from exit 1 to 18W (113 miles) in a large truck costs $26.55US.
cam: I think the cost to finish the Pacific: Highway is estimated at 11 billion AUD. The NSW government raises 30 billion in tax each year. Raising 11 billion for public works is probably achievable for NSW ( Quiggin argues it is for Qld ). The other issue as the numerous PPP ventures in tunnels etc have been pretty much NSW corruption at it finest.

I travel the NJ turnpike each month. Delaware bilks me more than the turnpike does. I pay $6 USD for ten miles of Delaware highway, while NJ charges $3.10 for nearly 100 miles of their road (I get on exit 8 and jump off at the Delaware Memorial Bridge).

The Pacific Highway is actually new. The Old Pacific Highway is an absolute nightmare. Unfortunately the unimproved bits dump the driver onto the Old Pacific Highway which are the crap parts. Getting to Newcastle before the Newcastle Highway went in (the Pacific Highway to Newcastle which replaced the Old Pacific Highway) took hours. Now it takes about an hour and a bit to get to the northern tip of Sydney.

That meant the Central Coast and Newcastle were integrated into the Sydney economy. In the late 90s I had mates how lived in southern Newcastle and commuted to jobs in Sydney.

cam
ranomatic: Double Dipping: So do you agree with the TWU\'s \"double dipping\" claim?  Looks to me like that $11B hasn\'t been dipped yet.  Tolls should be considered to finance completion.  Any fair toll would be set based on cost.

Of course there\'s fair and then there\'s milking.  Delaware milks me and my wife often as well.  The $3 road toll for 11mi. of travel nets them $0.27 per mile (not including the $3 for the bridge).  They don\'t charge the bridge toll for southbound traffic, but they still get $3 for the road.

That\'s nothing compared to what they get from trucks.  Five axle trucks pay $8 for the road (six axles pay $10).  That\'s $0.73 per mile and doesn\'t include $15 for the bridge ($18 for six axles).  What a racket!

PPP for highway construction and improvement worry me as well.  I worked on several PPP projects - they had ZERO public oversite.  On one project, they sent us all the money before we started.  I didn\'t see any corruption, but the potential was certainly there.  
cam: Sydney\'s Tunnels: and motorways all bilk you at the point of greatest congestion. Not when you get off or on. The M4 toll is right near Strathfield, this is despite the Great Western Highway stretching from Penrith to Strathfield. So it isnt a user pays system. They are just catching drivers with a full toll where the traffic is greatest.

The other issue is, a lot of these new roads are only about 15 kms in length. They arent like the 80 miles of the NJ Turnpike or PA Turnpike. So you get hit with a toll at each of these places. For instance to get from the airport to Epping you go through the Harbor tunnel, and then 10 kms later pay for the M2 (where it starts).

I think the government should pay for the infrastructure. It is only expensive now because they constantly put it off. The Pacific Highway has been shoddy for a couple of generations now, and they are slowly workign on improving it.

On the PPP thing, the contracts were where the corruption was. The government agreed to funnel traffic into the tolled section by closing roads, making traffic lights inconvenient etc. The Dulles Greenway has some form of non-compete clause too IIRC.

cam
ranomatic: According to George Carlin: you can\'t go anywhere in New Jersey \"without some schmuck in a hat wants 50 cents.\"  It\'s similar in many cities, especially for tunnels and bridges.  I see your point about the government - if they would just do what needs to be done and pay the price now, everyone would be better off.  I haven\'t noticed many politicians willing to stick their necks out lately to do the right thing.  Tolls keep them from being required to do the hard work required to provide government funding for projects.

The Dulles Greenway is a very interesting project.  It\'s fully privately funded, built, operated, and maintained.  They even pay for the police patrol.  This 14mi. triple lane freeway costs $3.20 for 2 axles and $6.40 for 3 and up.  While the cost isn\'t at the Delaware Turnpike level, it is quite high. Even with its high cost, it looks to me like the impact on the local economy has been very positive.
cam: Double-Dipping: The Nationals are against double-dipping too . But that is the mentality which leads to a booth being in Stratthfield rather than Penrith. I agree with the locals though, why pay for something you are supposedly already paying for. Plus NSW is one of the largest economic entities in Australia outside of the federal government. It should be able to raise the money to pay for it.

cam
avocadia: Double Dipping: I believe if the Federal Government is going to levy a fuel excise specifically to raise funds for roads, and the NSW government is going to continue levying its increasingly ironic \"3 by 3\" tax on fuel, then to allowing someone else to charge me again for road building/maintenence will constitute triple dipping.
cam: The 3x3: was meant to mean 3c for 3 years. Lollerskates on that one. IIRC the three years started before I got my drivers license.

cam

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