A22 tolls three years on - an expensive mistake

Tolls on the Via do Infante have cost drivers in the Algarve €70 million over the past three years, according to Estradas de Portugal which noted today that the toll income is steadily rising.  

The Via do Infante Users Committee (CUVI) still is deeply involved in highlighting the damage the tolls have done to the Algarve’s regional economy and are continuing its programme of protests to have the tolls suspended on economic and safety grounds.

The accident rate on the government’s suggested alternative road, the overburdened and poorly maintained EN125, is unnecessarily high, claims CUVI, as the road runs through many village locations and was never designed to be an alternative to motorway travel.

The Partido Comunista Português has opposed the tolls system from day one and today offered support to a noisy protest along the streets of Faro which marked three years of tolls.

The party considers that the affects of the tolls have been "very negative for economic activity in the region" and have generated a “worsening of social injustices and inequalities."

The Left Bloc and CUVI have been in talks with Spanish political parties, including Izquierda Unida, and have developed a Spanish-Portuguese group of those affected by tolls on the Via do Infante. This group will meet again on Saturday December 13th in Castro Marim to decide on new forms of protest, this time centred on the Guadiana International Bridge linking Spain and the Algarve.

The Intermunicipal Community of the Algarve, made up of the region’s mayors, finally has approved a motion to appeal against the continuation of tolls on economic and safety grounds. The mayors started off against the tolls but some changed their minds when an improvement budget of over €120 million was proposed for the EN125. This pot of gold vanished as soon as the tolls started to be charged, leaving mayors such as the then mayor of Faro Macario Correia, not knowing which U-turn to make next.

None of this bothers Estradas de Portugal which reported today that between January and October 2014, that revenue from tolls "has already reached the total amount of revenue from 2013," which was €23.8 million.

In 2012, the toll take was €21.3 million and the company explained the subsequent increase in revenues by pointing to improvements made in payment systems and the fact that a few foreign drivers now have decided to pay up.

The payment systems have been an embarassing disaster and 'improvements' have only added further payment methods to an already over-complicated raft of baffling alternatives.

Users point to a sharp drop in traffic volume due to the tolls but the road company believes this is as much due to the recession as to its own pricing structure and adds that “the rise in traffic on the EN125 is not proportional to the drop in traffic on the Via do Infante,” a statement not backed up by data. It is of course proportional, it has to be, but 'what proportion?' is the question.

Estradas de Portugal has an interesting way of presenting its figures which, after being processed by its PR department, show that in the first nine months of 2014, traffic on the Via do Infante increased 9% and since the introduction of payment there has been "a strong reduction of the burden on the taxpayer" from the Via do Infante.

The taxpayer Estradas de Portugal is so concerned about has been additionally burdened by support payments to the Spanish owned toll collection company, payments that have cost upwards of €40 million a year out of general taxation.

The problem that Estradas de Portugal has is clear, over 90% of its income is spent on Public Private Partnerships repayments.

The company is scheduled to pay, between 2015 and 2019, €5.9725 billion to the various public-private partnership funds that shovelled money into the country's roads, including the formerly free SCUT roads of which the Via do Infante is one.

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