PAY TO BEAT GRIDLOCK

MOTORISTS who have experienced the M1 in gridlock will not complain about paying a reasonable toll charge to use an alternative motorway.

Let’s face it. Has anyone who is a regular commuter on the Pacific Motorway been lucky enough never to have been caught in the carpark conditions when the flow slows or comes to a standstill because of an accident, or simply because the traffic is heavy?

We live in a user-pays world now. Mayor Tom Tate’s call for a public-private partnership that builds an M2 toll road will not cause too many drivers to flinch at the prospect. If they do, they obviously don’t drive beyond their suburb much.

Gold Coasters might raise a quizzical eyebrow that Cr Tate’s funding suggestion involves federal and state governments, private interests – and no city council. But in fact he is bringing something to the table by saying the city should commit to the considerable engineering work involved in getting the project “shovel ready’’.

Under his model, state and federal governments would pay 25 per cent each, with a private enterprise consortium investing 50 per cent and then being able to charge a toll over a period up to 50 years. Even a cash-strapped state government and Canberra would have to look at that.

As the mayor says, the motorist makes the decision. Use the M1 and take pot luck you’ll reach your destination within reasonable time, or opt for the alternative and pay the toll to get from A to B quicker.

Most drivers in southeast Queensland are used to the idea of paying on certain roads nowadays. We pay to cross the Brisbane River when using the Gateway arterial road, we pay to dive under the Brisbane River if using Brisbane’s tunnels, and we pay to use the Logan Motorway to head towards Ipswich and Toowoomba.

The sooner this issue is removed from the political pointscoring arena and a bipartisan plan is found to fix one of the nation’s biggest bottlenecks, the better.