Chief executive’s claim after calls to open up road
THE M6 Toll Road chief executive has said that making it free would have ‘next to no’ effect on traffic congestion around the West Midlands.
Midlands Expressway chief Andy Pearson said that at peak times 80-95 per cent of through traffic, say going from London to Manchester, already use the payas-you-go motorway.
Speaking on the day the privately operated road saw its 200 millionth vehicle pass through its toll booth he was answering calls from the West Midlands mayor candidate Sion Simon for the road to be nationalised.
He said: “It makes no com- mercial or financial sense to consider the action Sion is suggesting. The M6 Toll does exactly what it says on the tin.
“We provide a congestion relief option for through traffic. The road was built to give those people a choice.”
He said that the road already takes 60 per cent on average of the through traffic rising to 95 per cent during peak rush hour.
Most of the congestion on the M6 and M5 was caused by local traffic which would have no use for a free toll road, he argued.
“If the road was to made free it would have next to no benefit on the traffic congestion around Birmingham in the peak hour,” he added.
The road, which costs £5.50 per car and £11 per lorry at peak times, can be made free in a serious emergency through a deal with Government - but the 24 hour closure of the M6 following a fatal crash in February was not extreme enough to trigger that deal.
But Mr Simon hit back over the claims that a free toll road would relieve congestion for Brummies. He said: ”Usage of the M6 toll road is going down. The official government figures show that it has decreased from an average daily flow of 37,682 in 2010 to 30,912 in 2015 - at the same time as usage of the M6 is going up and our regional roads are increasingly gridlocked. And the road is up for sale. Those are the facts.
“There is a significant chunk of through traffic which currently doesn’t go around the conurbation on the M6 Toll, but instead uses our motorways and roads inside the region, which are free.
“If you made it free, more people would take the M6 Toll, because it’s quicker and easier.”
If elected mayor next year he said he would push for the Department for Transport to buy the road and open it up.
Andy Pearson