[photopress:logistics_toll_booth.jpg,full,alignright]Tolls are exacted from drivers on more than half of China’s road-miles. A report says tollway operators, including some governments, have gone too far.
A National Audit Office (NAO) report February 27 said that, by the end of 2005, China’s 180,000 kilometers of toll roads comprised 55% of all national and provincial highways. The result is that driving is expensive, and the original reason for building toll roads has been twisted.
An example. Anyone who drives cross-country from Beijing to the southeastern city of Fuzhou will likely travel on two major highways and a provincial road whose tollgate tenders will collect a combined RMB1,600. A plane ticket between the two cities costs less.
According to the report:
158 illegal toll stations in 16 provinces had overcharged a total RMB14.9 billion by the end of 2005. Seven provinces increased tolls, adding RMB8.2 billion in charges.
Local governments approved extensions of toll contract periods for 35 roads, pushing revenues to ten times construction costs.
Beijing’s airport tollway was deemed legal but improper. Construction costs were footed by local governments partially with bank loans. But the tollway’s operators have charged drivers RMB3.2 billion between opening day 1993 and the end of 2005, and could receive another RMB9 billion before the contract expires. The total building cost was RMB1.17 billion.
NAO advised central and local governments to control the scale of tolls, increase government funding for road construction, and give particular attention to fine-tuning relevant laws and regulations. Having said that the report struck a despairing note in agreeing that that the current approach to building roads with loans and charge tolls would not change until at least 2020.
Toll roads have proliferated in China since 1984, when Beijing encouraged local governments to borrow from banks to build roads and pay off loans with toll proceeds. Toll road building became a lucrative business.
Toll roads have become cash cows for operators because pavement is easy to lay and charges even easier to collect.
Source: Cajing