Friday, May 6, 2011

Invasion Of The Toll Gantries

A picture that depicts what most Gauteng-ers will be dreading this coming end of June: a strange, neon blue light coming out of the sky!

For those of you not familiar with this contraption....it is a gantry, also known as a toll point. A lot of these gantries have been erected around N1/N3/N4/N12/R21/R24, the national roads of Gauteng, to accommodate the new e-tolling system. Gauteng-ers are set to be tolled without passing through physical toll gates at the end of June 2011.

Currently, there is still a lot of debates and discussions going around regarding the cost the government has laid down to charge the public and the ripple effects of these costs being passed onto consumer goods and food prices. It has not been finalised and could still change. But at the moment, the toll charge is set at R0.66 (roughly $0.10) per a kilometre of tolled road. That would mean if I travel 50kms (around 31 miles) on this stretch of road, I would have to fork out about R33 (roughly $3.75) per trip.

For more details on the new toll system, visit The Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project. Don't know why they keep calling it freeway when it's not gonna be free anymore.

What are your thoughts on this?

1 comment:

kim said...

that is sad..

visiting from My Neighborhood!