Finally getting to grips with toll booth chaos
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Five of China’s central ministries jointly announced on Tuesday that toll booths should be removed at once from all roads that have already paid back their construction loans.
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Fleeced at the toll booth [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn] |
This is exciting for the public, and has been long awaited – people have been complaining for years about omnipresent highway tolls and their never-ending fees.
There is an old saying that if you want to get rich, you must build roads first. Thus, building roads, especially expressways, has become a major source of infrastructure projects.
The roads are supposed to be built to speed up transport and promote travel and trade. Sadly, too many tollbooths are randomly set up along roads, chronically slowing down traffic flow. They are like ATM machines for the operators. Many of them have already collected more than the original investment, but keep charging fees far beyond their remit.
The highway that links Beijing’s airport to the downtown, was built in 1993 with an investment of 1.165 billion yuan ($180 million). According to Beijing’s statistics bureau, the road had earned 3.2 billion yuan by 2005. However, the operator, a company that obtained the operation rights from the local government in 1997, is contracted to collect tolls until 2026.
A joke that recently appeared on the Internet may not be far from the truth. It says China’s toll roads can become the country’s first barrier to stop any potential invasion of foreign forces, who will be forced to pass through thousands of them.
The toll road operators often claim that they keep collecting tolls because they need to pay off debts, and that personnel and road maintenance always require more money. But media reports suggest something different.
The monthly salary of a toll collector is 8,000 yuan ($1,234), which is far higher than the average salary of many white-collar jobs. No wonder people are saying that even the head of a local traffic bureau wanted to become a booth operator.
This greedy deprivation of road users’ interests has led to public dissatisfaction and increased logistical costs. The excessively high prices of foodstuffs and many daily necessities are reportedly partly the result of too many tollbooths through which trucks have to fork out for.
It is fair to anticipate resistance from the toll companies and local governments, as the highways have long been easy money-makers, and contracts will be produced which appear to allow them to maintain this practice for decades to come.
It will be a long tough battle for the authorities to deal with this stubborn issue. However, the government has to be resolute. For quite a while, some have complained that some government officials only care about the GDP. It is time to reestablish confidence among the citizens, and at the same time create a win-win situation for local economy and social stability.
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