Carving up the city and the spoils

Issue 

Carving up the city and the spoils

By Maree Roberts

MELBOURNE — The Citylink private tollway is due to open in early May, but its construction is still dogged by controversy.

One revelation is that the concrete on the new bridge over the Yarra is "blistering", showing the effects of its hasty construction. Similar blistering on other parts of the tollway has caused large chunks of concrete to fall into the river below.

Subsidence has also begun around the Burnley Tunnel because of the millions of litres of water drained from the surrounding soil during construction. The project has been plagued by accidents, including the death of a young worker.

In the lead-up to the opening, Citylink has cut the predicted toll levels by 50% to get the public used to paying for a service they used to get for free — the Tullamarine Freeway. There are also rumours that Citylink will discourage trucks from using the tollway in case they clog up the system and stop people achieving the shorter trip times that Citylink is promising to entice people to use it.

The tollway is a new milestone on capital's endless search for new ways to extract money from working people. Not content with the ordinary "$2 in the bucket" toll road version, this will extract around $7 for a trip from the city to the airport — and you won't even know it's happening, thanks to the new electronic tolling system.

Paying for public roads through individual tolls (at the same time as public transport is being privatised) is regressive. Because of the poor public transport system, many people have no alternative but to use roads to take their kids to school and activities, to shop and to go to work.

It's only this city's poorer western and northern suburbs residents who have to pay to use their local roads. Can you imagine the state government approving a private tollway through Toorak? I don't think so.

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