Talking about tolls,taking into account maintainance how many times has the qe2 bridge payed for itself?
regards dave.
dafdave:
Talking about tolls,taking into account maintainance how many times has the qe2 bridge payed for itself?
regards dave.
And does the same apply to the Severn crossings? i.e. they’ll be free (!) once paid off and they’ve made their profits.
limeyphil:
Unite said it was “negotiating in earnest to get a fair settlement” with SRC. Talks will resume on Friday.
What’s Earnest got to do with it? Does anyone know him?
earnest is where the talks are taking place. I think it’s near desperation, south of jeopardy.
Snudger:
dafdave:
Talking about tolls,taking into account maintainance how many times has the qe2 bridge payed for itself?
regards dave.And does the same apply to the Severn crossings? i.e. they’ll be free (!) once paid off and they’ve made their profits.
Aye snudger should happen but we all know it never will,its a nice little earner.
regards dave.
sack them all and put digital toll booths in and couple of supervisors to keep a eye on it that would sort them out work life balance my arse 
Snudger:
Isn’t earnest the correct spelling in the above context? Isn’t the speed limit 40MPH or less on the “toll plaza”? I certainly know of someone whose only points were due to speeding along there - not me.
30 mph limit through the tolls, I think we can all manage to get through the open booths at that speed can’t we ?
Who would pay to enter Wales? I thought you only required possession of a blue badge and you were in anyway?!
dafdave:
Talking about tolls,taking into account maintainance how many times has the qe2 bridge payed for itself?
regards dave.
The tolls take an average of £6 million a month, the total running costs of both bridges is £12 million a year, the operators of the bridges were expected to hand them back to public ownership in 2017 but have been allowed to carry on until 2018 because of a fall in traffic volumes and the cost of installing chip and pin readers.
Probably the finest example of a reason to never allow private money to finance public projects, I suspect the fall in traffic volumes is due to the fact that lots of people have no reason to come to South Wales anymore, £18.20 for a truck and a 2 lane M4 which crawls along at rush hour is hardly the best encouragement for business.
The operators of the bridges claim there is no evidence of a detrimental effect on business in the region, rubbish Newhouse Farm Industrial estate near Chepstow is now deserted with only Asda remaining while Avonmouth is booming.
I ride a bike so I don’t pay, £30 a week in tolls if you drive plus the cost of fuel, I doubt the French who own the bridge would stand for it.
P.S if any of you think you will be crossing for nothing,dream on.
dafdave:
Talking about tolls,taking into account maintainance how many times has the qe2 bridge payed for itself?
regards dave.
I did hear in the case of the QE2 bridge that the tolls are staying to help pay for a new crossing in the near future…i understand the isle of grain across to essex somewhere is one of the proposed sites for a new bridge
Only 5 years to go then:-
Just like Dartford crossing was going to be free.
danj:
sack them all and put digital toll booths in and couple of supervisors to keep a eye on it that would sort them out work life balance my arse
You mean like what they’re installing at Dartford, free flow charging
That’ll probably be the future on all roads soon now we have black box tracking technology 
The tolls are here to stay, it’s obvious. There is no way in this economic climate that they can afford or even let people know that they can afford not to have tolls running on Toll Roads.
Just look how empty the M6 Toll stays compared to the original route of the M6 around Birmingham?
If they capped it at the M5 or had the M6 go down the M5 for one junction then it may encourage some users to use the toll instead, but not for the prices they’re charging.
£18 to take a truck over the M48 bridge? No wonder they like the tolls. Of course, they could split it and have people charging half either way, but then they’d soon find that for years people have been bypassing the payment system using that method…
Then they’ll roll toll charging out across the rest of the road network and then how long before big companies decide it’s cheaper to drive their vehicles at night when there is low charging compared to the daytime? Of course, you’d need to get more staff in at night to adapt and people will moan they’re not getting enough sleep because of noisy trucks all the time…
The tolls have totally ruined Transport and Distribution in South Wales with very few large operators now remaining, In many ways some drivers (including myself) who live close enough to Avonmouth and commute on a motorcycle have in a way benefited from the tolls £30 quid a week in tolls puts lots of people off taking the the jobs which seem to be in some abundance at the moment.