Whacky Signs.

[The Johnster]

39 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Nah.  The Welsh are proud of making a profit out of the English!

 

Justifiable retaliation after the Severn Bridge tolls!  You know what you say about us and sheep; well, it's all true, and then we sell them to you so you can eat them...

[Michael Hodgson]

1 minute ago, The Johnster said:

 

Justifiable retaliation after the Severn Bridge tolls! 

They were the one thing that went down on decimalisation in 1971.  2/6 was rounded down to 12p because they weren't prepared to faff about with the new halfpence, and initially at least it needed an Act of Parliament to increase the toll.  Later increases could be authorised by an order of the Minsitry.  There was a proposal a few years ago to reintroduce the tolls.  That brainwave - on the part of a Welsh local authority - didn't get very far!

 

The toll of course replaced the fare for the Aust ferry (same excuse as the Skye Bridge, Humber Bridge and a couple of others) so opening the Bridge didn't really make much difference to the cost of trips to Bristol.  And you could walk across for free.   My mum used to go to the Drop-in Centre in Chepstow as a volunteer to make tea "for the Old People" (in her late 70s herself ) where she knew the skipper of the last of those ferries - I think he became mayor of Monmouth at some point.

 

 

The opportunity missed by the Welsh Nats missed was the propaganda value if they'd have called the toll a tax on entering Wales, with no corresponding tax going to England.  In practice my journeys to the area were assymetric to avoid the tolls.  I drove cross-country via Oxford, Gloucester and the A48 but often came back via the M4 (as it then was).  I think a lot of unbalanced traffic from the Midlands for Newport/Cardiff also came in via the A40/A449 but leaving via the motorway.

 

The SSC came over too far West to be of much use to us.

 

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

It's a matter of some embarrassment that the only part of the TfW rail network that comes close to making an operating profit is the bit in England.

The South Wales to Manchester trains must do most of their miles in England🙂

Interestingly Shrewsbury & Chester Stations are managed by TfW along with most on the English side in the borderlands.

[Tumut]

Hello All, re tolls on bridges specifically, as electronic tolling has been around for decades now, and is quite reliable, I personally think charging tolls for bridges actually makes some sense. Consider that bridges ( and tunnels for that matter ) are a high capital cost, require ongoing maintenance to be kept safe, and at some point need replacing ( bridges ) or major refurbishment ( tunnels ) to keep them safe, I think a toll on each direction is reasonable. I would also point out that pre WW2, road tunnels and bridges were normally financed by tolls paid into a Trust Fund, which was intended to meet both the interest on loans, and the maintenance of the bridge/tunnel.

 

In the UK's case the costs of maintaining some of your famous highway suspension bridges ( Forth Rd Bridge, Severn Suspension Bridge, Humber Crossing ) all of which replaced tolled ferries. In Australia, the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge/SHB was once tolled in both directions, it is now only electronically tolled ( price varies according to time of day ) in the southerly direction only. ( The toll applies to both the Sydney Harbour Bridge & the adjacent Sydney Harbour Tunnel by Transurban, and the SHB was built by public money, not Transurban. )

 

I personally think that such tolls should apply in both directions, at a lower rate obviously, to generate a similar revenue, and this infrastructure should really be owned by a Public Trust whose collected revenue is specifically for the tolled infrastructure.

 

( Yes, I am aware that in the past we did things that way, before we privatised it, to make things "efficient" and "cheaper", and then doubled the cost as a "free market" solution, and paid some people 9 figure sums, in lieu of the 5-6 figure sums previously paid, and for what ? the "privilege" of making payments difficult, and even obscurantist ! ) Grumpy old rant over.

 

Regards from Australia.

Edited April 27 by Tumut
adding Transurban, and fixing spelling error

[Mol_PMB]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

TfW is in many ways a political construct, formed in order to obtain funding from the Welsh Assembly Government.  There has never been an effective rail route between the north and the south of Wales, and there is only barely an effective road connection (A470).  Our Trawscambria coach network does not provide a through vehicle, you have to change at Aberystwyth and it is a long way round; back in the 90s this provided one coach per day between Cardiff and Holyhead, which too  nine hours via Swansea, Carmarthen, and Aberystwyth. 

 

The basic problems are the geography, which consists mostly of mountain ranges aligned SW-NE when the traffic flow is SE-NW, and the traffic levels; there are not sufficient people who want to travel between the south and the north of the country to make the provision of a through route entirely to the west of Offa's Dyke viable, in fact not even enough for such a route to even see the sky over viable.  By and large, if you live in the south or southwest, your destination is Swansea or Cardiff and your airport is Cardiff or Bristol, if you live in Powys it is Birmingham and the trains run to Birmingham Internaional, and in the north it is Liverpool and John Lennon airport, or Manchester.

 

Very true, and thanks for the explanation. My regular journey by TfW is Manchester to Porthmadog, for which by far the quickest route is by train to Bangor and then Trawscambria T2 to Porthmadog. This is despite there being two alternative all-rail routes (via Machynlleth or via Blaenau Ffestiniog), but they are long, slow, infrequently-served journeys.

The T2 timetable and routing has been changed this year, and although it is now more regular it is slower, and in my experience the connections with the trains at Bangor are less well-timed. I'm not sure I'd call it a 'coach' - it's definitely a 'bus' in my eyes, both in the type of vehicle used and the fact that it stops at every lamp-post. The £3 single fare is a good deal though.

 

 

Edited April 27 by Mol_PMB
spelling

[Michael Hodgson]

29 minutes ago, Tumut said:

 

I personally think that such tolls should apply in both directions, at a lower rate obviously, to generate a similar revenue, and this infrastructure should really be owned by a Public Trust whose collected revenue is specifically for the tolled infrastructure.

 

 

There was good reasin for charging in one direction only on the first Severn Bridge.  There wasn't room for toll booths at the Western end, and whilst they could have put toll booths for eastbound traffic at the eastern end, that could have meant a lot of heavy lorries from the South Wales steelworks standing on the bridge whenever there was a significant queue. 

 

Although it is a suspension bridge, the road deck is a box girder design, and there had been a major collapse of a box girder bridge in West Wales.  The engineers seem to have spent years studying that bridge presumably over safety concerns, as quite often I would cross finding contraflow on one cariageway for inspection of the other only to return a few hours later to find the opposite one closed instead.  I do wonder whether such doubts were a factor in decision to build the SSC, as all the heavy traffic now uses that and the first birdge is quite quiet.

[Michael Hodgson]

44 minutes ago, Tumut said:

Hello All, re tolls on bridges specifically, as electronic tolling has been around for decades now, and is quite reliable, I personally think charging tolls for bridges actually makes some sense.

 

All roads require maintenance, just some stretches require rather more than others.  One can argue about whether we should pay more or less in various sorts of tax, or whether taxes should be hypothecated.  We do already pay for the maintenance of roads though general taxation, including fuel duties and VAT on the fuel duty as well as the petrol - but they're still not fixing the potholes.

 

I see charging tolls as the thin end of the wedge - a move towards the French Péage system or "road pricing".  And once they've been introduced, usually at a very low level, it's easy to increase them, potentially to levels unaffordable to the masses.  It's like congestion charging and the new tourist tax that Venice is introducing - local authorities cashing in on one's ability to move around the country.  The rich can move about as they wish but the hoi-polloi should all stay in their own little village like they did in feudal times.

 

It goes against one of the "four freedoms".  All EU citizens and their family members have the right to move and reside freely within the EU. This fundamental right is established by Article 21 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union and Article 45 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.  Of course, EU law now longer applies in Britain as the turkeys voted for Xmas.

[Welchester]

12 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

I see charging tolls as the thin end of the wedge - a move towards the French Péage system or "road pricing".  And once they've been introduced, usually at a very low level, it's easy to increase them, potentially to levels unaffordable to the masses.  It's like congestion charging and the new tourist tax that Venice is introducing - local authorities cashing in on one's ability to move around the country.  The rich can move about as they wish but the hoi-polloi should all stay in their own little village like they did in feudal times.

 

 

When the M6 Toll opened in 2003, the charge for a car was £2.50. It is now £8.90.

 

In France, I believe a toll road can only be opened as an alternative to an existing trunk road.

[The Johnster]

The original M4 Severn Bridge was a disaster for South Wales.  It enabled the development of industry and warehouse/distribution hubs in the North Bristol area, later developed into Cribb's Causeway, and the imported car distribution network based on Portbury Docks, which were easily able to serve supermarkets and industries in South Wales, to the detriment of jobs in South Waies.  It was the death of car imports and exports from Cardiff and Newport.  It also promoted the use of Bristol Airport at Lulsgate for South Walians at the expense of Cardiff (Rhoose).  Both airports are very badly situated and poorly served by road and public transport, the 'wrong' side of the cities they are named for, and for some years there was talk of a 'Severnside International' airport to replace both of them and tap into traffic from the Midlands as well.  An airport built out over the esturary close to the bridges and Severn Tunnel would be very stategically placed at the crossroads of both motorways (Almondsbury) and railways (Bristol Parkway), but it never happened.

[30801]

Waitrose put up this joke billboard in Wandsworth.

The council thought it was really falling down and cordoned it off.

[KeithMacdonald]

Have we had this one before?

 

[kevinlms]

13 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Have we had this one before?

 

Yes, but not lately! 😇

[Tumut]

20 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

All roads require maintenance, just some stretches require rather more than others.  One can argue about whether we should pay more or less in various sorts of tax, or whether taxes should be hypothecated.  We do already pay for the maintenance of roads though general taxation, including fuel duties and VAT on the fuel duty as well as the petrol - but they're still not fixing the potholes.

 

I see charging tolls as the thin end of the wedge - a move towards the French Péage system or "road pricing".  And once they've been introduced, usually at a very low level, it's easy to increase them, potentially to levels unaffordable to the masses.  It's like congestion charging and the new tourist tax that Venice is introducing - local authorities cashing in on one's ability to move around the country.  The rich can move about as they wish but the hoi-polloi should all stay in their own little village like they did in feudal times.

 

It goes against one of the "four freedoms".  All EU citizens and their family members have the right to move and reside freely within the EU. This fundamental right is established by Article 21 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union and Article 45 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.  Of course, EU law now longer applies in Britain as the turkeys voted for Xmas.

 

Dear Michael,and others,

1 / from an Australian perspective, Fuel Duty ( due to it being based on liquid volume ) though required to be paid into Consolidated Revenue, the equivalent amount collected was spent by the Commonwealth on roads, however, by the mid 1980s, road maintenance costs started, and has continued to exceed Fuel Duty collection, so other supplementary funding arrangements have been under discussion for some years now.

2 / which brings me to the "road pricing" argument. To some extent, I can see the argument for vehicles being tolled for distance travelled, which would be in lieu of Fuel Excise, however, in practice I think that a general electronic toll nationally would end up creating more problems than it would solve, and I can forsee that there would be ongoing arguments about the details, and the fairness, and the subsequent funding allocation. But the problem then becomes how and what sort of revenue (if any) should be collected for non fuel vehicles.

3 / I take your point aboutTolls and Fees, over time, restricting the hoi-polloi, but some charges, such as Congestion Tax for Peak Hours, are an attempt to shift one person driven vehicles to alternate public transport ( Singapore being a notable example ) which I think does have merit.

4 / Melbourne, Victoria, Australia has a few privately financed (Transurban again !) Motorways, and a late friend who was a frequent user of the toll motorway was, much to my surprise , quite in favour of some limited tolls, on the basis that it was an improved alternate to an existing toll free highway, so you did have a choice in deciding to use the toll road or not.

5 / I agree with the concept of the EU's FourFreedoms, but I think it is a bit of a stretch to compare a limited number of tolled roads with a restriction on freedom of movement.

6 / re Venice ( and Barcelona ) Tourist Tax, who would have thought that tourism would become so massive as to force residents out of their city ? Which, to some extent, the Tourist Tax is designed to alleviate.

Thanks for your comments, regards from Oz.

 

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Have we had this one before?

 

 

May I add that TomTom satnavs would tend to differ.  If there's an apparent "shortcut", they'll send you down it!

 

[The Johnster]

Problem is that lorry drivers buy satnavs in motorway services, not taking account of the fact that they are designed for general use, not HGV.  Those big motorhomes are vulnerable to this as well.  The satnav knows how to get there, but not necessarily that it’s in a 15’ high vehicle.  
 

Of course, satnavs for commercial vehicles are available, but expensive and only available to commercial customers.  Cardiff buses had them a few years ago, set to sound a warning when the bus was within a set distance of a low bridge.  Sounds like a good idea, but the warnings were going off virtually continuously in the city centre as they were almost continuously with range of such a bridge, even though the bridge was not on the bus’s route…

[GrumpyPenguin]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Problem is that lorry drivers buy satnavs in motorway services, not taking account of the fact that they are designed for general use, not HGV.  Those big motorhomes are vulnerable to this as well.  The satnav knows how to get there, but not necessarily that it’s in a 15’ high vehicle.  
 

Of course, satnavs for commercial vehicles are available, but expensive and only available to commercial customers.  Cardiff buses had them a few years ago, set to sound a warning when the bus was within a set distance of a low bridge.  Sounds like a good idea, but the warnings were going off virtually continuously in the city centre as they were almost continuously with range of such a bridge, even though the bridge was not on the bus’s route…

That's where you are well wrong -

https://gb.snooper.eu/collections/truckmate

I have an earlier one that I paid around £250 for - only got to "save" you once & it's paid for.

Before inputting your destination you input the size/weight of your truck - easy peasey.

Mine came with "updates for life" & can also be used for motorhomes/cars/motorbikes/pedal cycles & on foot.

[kevinlms]

6 hours ago, Tumut said:

 

 

4 / Melbourne, Victoria, Australia has a few privately financed (Transurban again !) Motorways, and a late friend who was a frequent user of the toll motorway was, much to my surprise , quite in favour of some limited tolls, on the basis that it was an improved alternate to an existing toll free highway, so you did have a choice in deciding to use the toll road or not.

 

 

I don't mind using the toll roads in Melbourne (East Link is NOT owned by Transurban - although they are looking at the possibility of buying it), as long as they do provide a better product than the freebees. In the case of East Link, it is vastly quicker than using Stud Road, the only viable alternative.

However, I admit that I don't have to use toll roads every day.

[melmerby]

16 hours ago, Tumut said:

re Venice ( and Barcelona ) Tourist Tax, who would have thought that tourism would become so massive as to force residents out of their city ? Which, to some extent, the Tourist Tax is designed to alleviate

Could do with something like that in some UK coastal (and other) towns where the tourists have also bought up all the houses so the locals can't even find somewhere to live, let alone afford it.

[Michael Hodgson]

39 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Could do with something like that in some UK coastal (and other) towns where the tourists have also bought up all the houses so the locals can't even find somewhere to live, let alone afford it.

Yes, the grockles have taken over Cornwall, so we'll charge Cornishmen extra to commute to work from Devon.

[Reorte]

6 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Yes, the grockles have taken over Cornwall, so we'll charge Cornishmen extra to commute to work from Devon.

I'd have thought that most Cornishmen would regard having to live in Devon as worse than any taxes!

[billbedford]

50 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Could do with something like that in some UK coastal (and other) towns where the tourists have also bought up all the houses so the locals can't even find somewhere to live, let alone afford it.

 

The Welsh Welsh had a way of dealing with such incursions, they just set fire to cottages owned by English incomers. 

[The Johnster]

Second homes are a major political issue in Wales, and cause all sorts of problems as well as the nationalist/language issue, but apart from that issue the same can be said of areas in England such as the Peak and Lake Districts, and the North Norfolk coast.  I am always a little surprised that people in these areas seem to protest less in general than us Welsh do at the imposition and the destruction of village life caused.

[The Johnster]

4 minutes ago, billbedford said:

 

The Welsh Welsh had a way of dealing with such incursions, they just set fire to cottages owned by English incomers. 

 

 'Come home to a real fire, buy a cottage in Wales'...

 

'🎵 In your holiday home

In your holiday home

We'll burn all your tables

we'll burn all your chairs

we'll burn all your children

that's sleeping upstairs'.🎶

 

Nasty little period, Meibion Glyndwr, glad it seems to have subsided a bit.  By far the biggest portion of new adult Welsh language learners are English incomers, and things have moved on a bit since 1282.

[Hroth]

27 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

By far the biggest portion of new adult Welsh language learners are English incomers...

 

Mainly because they want to know what the welsh speakers are muttering about when they change from English to Welsh as the "incomers" come into the village shop or pub? 🤔

 

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

 'Come home to a real fire, buy a cottage in Wales'...

 

'🎵 In your holiday home

In your holiday home

We'll burn all your tables

we'll burn all your chairs

we'll burn all your children

that's sleeping upstairs'.🎶

 

Nasty little period, Meibion Glyndwr, glad it seems to have subsided a bit. 

 

Not the only Welsh song of the Thatcher era  ...