The M6 Toll Road has seen a drop in traffic numbers of over 13% in the last year.
The road was the first toll motorway in the UK and is operated by Midlands Expressway, a private company that spent a huge wedge of taxpayers money along with another huge wedge of private money on building and operating a length of toll motorway that runs pretty much parallel to the existing, free of charge M6.
I’ve never used the M6 Toll myself. I refuse to pay to use a road that I’ve already paid to use and the traffic on the M6 is bad but not bad enough to make me want to pay £4.50 to travel a few miles down the road.
The M6 Toll company actually operates the information signs that tell you when the M6 is congested. I’ve only seen the M6 congested once as badly as the M6 Toll sign said that it was.
The National Alliance Against Tolls has called on the Highway Agency to take over the road but that won’t change anything – most people just won’t pay to use roads unless they have to.
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is that not the whole point?
to make it, too expensive to drive?
I have always thought the toll road to be an excellent idea for linking on to the M42 and Birmingham Airport. I use it for the Hams Hall car park and I used to use it for onward journeys to the M40.
However, I have hardly used it at all this year since the price was raised to £4.50. I seem to remeber travelling on it for about £2 at night not so long ago.
The only time I have used it this is during the peak hours between about 3.30 and 6pm. For the M40 you are better off heading west onto the M5 and through to the M42/M40 especially with all the roadworks on the M6 past junction 6.
Oh yes, I meant to say also that Staffordshire Police have been targeting the road during the week in recent months in unmarked vehicles. I have seen them practically everytime I have used the road.
In addition, the safety camera partnership van is often on the northbound carriageway on a Sunday morning. It also sits at various times in the week on the dual carriageway up from Featherstone to Gailey and then you have a fixed camera at Gailey itself.
I suspect that this Policing activity may have put some people off from even using the road at all. I wonder what Midland Expressway have to say about that?
As it’s private property (we only paid for it, we don’t own it) I suspect Midland Expressway are either happy with it or have bean leaned on to allow the police to patrol it and the speed camera nazi’s to set up their tax collectors on the bridges.
As a regular driver from Lichfield along the length of the A5 westbound that parallels the toll road I am not surprised by the drop in numbers on the M6T. The price is now ridiculous, and even more so for anything larger than a car. The A5 is always clogged with lorries (more every day it seems), but like them I refuse to turn onto the Shenstone junction 2 mins from my door, I just drive straight past.
It is also no surprise that the police can use it as an easy revenue generator. It is a FAST stretch of road. But accident hot spot? I doubt it. Similar to the stretch of dual carriageway A5 Eastbound approaching Shenstone. Ever been an accident there? No. Yet we best put a mobile camera van just around the final bend once a month without fail!!