The Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau said yesterday that calls to cut freeway tolls by 10 percent would mean that taxpayers who do not use freeways would end up paying for those who do.
Any reduction would cause additional losses to the debt-ridden Freeway Development and Management Fund, it said.
The bureau’s stance, however, was strongly criticized by members of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, who accused the bureau of ignoring motorists’ interests.
Lawmakers also questioned the bureau’s plan to start charging freeway tolls in 2012 based on total distance rather than by the number of toll gates passed, because drivers with on-board units (OBU) for the electronic freeway toll-collection only account for 30 percent of freeway motorists.
The idea of cutting freeway tolls was first proposed last year by southern lawmakers, including the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順).
Yeh, who represents Tainan County, said there are four toll gates in the county, two on Freeway No. 1 and two on Freeway No. 3.
“Tainan County is neither bigger nor wider than Taipei County, so why are there three toll gates in Taipei when there are four in Tainan?” she asked.
Bureau statistics show the average distance between two toll gates in sections south of Dounan (斗南) in Yunlin County was 31.52km, whereas north of Dounan it was 41km, she said.
Drivers must pay NT$40 each time they pass through a toll gate, which Yeh said was unfair to southern drivers. She suggested that drivers in the south be charged only NT$30.
Yeh also reminded the bureau of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) campaign pledge urging the Hsinshih (新勢) and Baihe (白河) toll gates be removed because people in the south were overcharged NT$35 billion (US$1 billion) in toll fees from the two toll gates.
KMT legislators Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) and Lin Ming-chen (林明溱) said the bureau no longer has any grounds to charge motorists for using the freeways. The bureau has collected approximately NT$312 billion from users of Freeway No. 1 since the 1970s, which was about twice as much as it cost to build.
The Transportation Committee passed a resolution giving the bureau another month to look into the issue.
KMT legislators Tsao Erh-chung (曹爾忠), Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) and Chen Ken-de (陳根德) said toll gates would be a moot issue once the bureau starts charging by distance. However, the bureau needs to consider how to efficiently use the Freeway Development and Management Fund, which is funded by the tolls, they said.
“The nation does not need to build more big roads, we have enough,” Lee said. “You need to plan on how to use the fund more efficiently, after deducting road maintenance costs.”
Chen also said the bureau needs to find a way to save on toll collection costs, particularly as it is now done electronically.
Bureau director-general Lee Tai-ming (李泰明) told the lawmakers that cutting tolls would result in a NT$350 billion shortfall, which would have to be made up from somewhere else, meaning that non-motorists would be penalized.
“Lowering tolls will encourage more motorists to drive on freeways and compromise their service quality,” Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Oliver Yu (游芳來) said.
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