Highways toll coming

Get ready to pay tolls on the new highways which are to  be constructed under the  $2.5 billion highway expansion programme. That is the word coming from Works Minister Franklyn Khan, who has just returned from discussions with IDB representatives in Washington on the funding of the mega-project. “The sting is in the tail,” Khan noted, as he revealed that there  was a strong likelihood that a new form of funding, called concessionaire funding, “which the IDB is pushing very very strongly,” would be used for the project. He said while the paying of such fees was not something this country was accustomed to, that was the way the world was going. “We have to start to look at infrastructure as an investment, and we have to have some sort of return on the investment. It is not 100 percent social service any more,” he said.

Noting that there were toll highways in Europe and North America, Khan stated it had also been very successfully implemented in Chile and Costa Rica. “We intend to send a delegation from the Ministry of Works shortly to look at how the system operates in these two (Latin American) countries,” he said. while there was a psychology of not wanting to pay, once modern highways and freeways — which would free up the traffic flow were constructed was available, he was confident that the people of Trinidad and Tobago would not be too averse to paying a toll. “If the Government attempted to sell PBR passes for $1,000, my office would be flooded immediately,” Khan hypothesised. “So if you have a freeway coming into town and you have to pay $5, people would pay,” he said. He added that right now people paid more to take a taxi passing on the bus route, as opposed to one passing on the Eastern Main Road. “So they are technically paying a toll to use the bus route,” he asserted. Khan said the highway expansion would include the construction of freeways to Point Fortin, to Mayaro via Princes Town and Rio Claro, to Sangre Grande from Wallerfield and maybe from Matelot to Blanchisseuse. Construction is expected to start at latest in mid-2005. Under the concessionaire system, a consortim of companies fund the construction of toll highways.