Thread: Which Disco owner caused the BrisConnections trading halt?

Just a note on all the tollways doing it tough and not making expected revenue. They seem to have not bothered doing their homework, as they should have followed the lead of the most successful tollway in the country - Citylink here in Melbourne. They somehow managed to convince the government of the day to allow them to toll exisiting roads that ran into their system, and to close off the major routes around the system, making it almost impossible to get around unless you have LOTS of time on your hands, and it certainly isn't financially viable to avoid it.

Now they have everyone using their roads, and they STILL block up at peak hour. They made a modifcation to the southern end of the Bolte Bridge a few years back so now only one lane heads toward the city and the south eastern sububs, but 3/4 of the traffic need to use that one lane, so you end up with a 1/2 hour wait from about 7 through to 10am...

Absolute garbage, and we have to put up with this unitl 2034...

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

Wasn't something like this contemplated or tried with one of Sydney's unwanted unused tunnels and caused such an uproar that the idea had to be canned.

Not sure, but they did it here - there was an uproar, and probably had something to do with the Premier at the time (Jeff Kennett) getting the boot at the 1999 election. Too late to do anything about it then, the 34 year concession for Citylink to build and run it was a done deal, and now we have to put up with it. They have nearly doubled the prices on the tollway since it first opened, far outstripping inflation, but there is also nothing anyone can do about that - no one can overrule their pricing structure. They now take over $1.5 million a day from these roads, and it will only get worse. Squeezing Melbournians for every drop knowing they can't do anything about it.

There is even anti competition clauses built into the contract - this is one reason a train line hasn't been built to the Airport as it will reduce the number of vehicles on the tollway, which would be a breach of contract...

How dumb are our Pollies sometimes...