Corrections Wrong Swede Sydney tolls

CORRECTIONS

Wrong Swede

The head of this newsletter’s reporter was gently swelling as a high official from Minnesota read at length during a recent session of the Transp Research Board from this newsletter on the matter of the demise of their I-394 HOT lanes project. He was full of accolades for its sharp analysis and supple grasp of the facts, but then he gave us the cold shower. We’d got one fact wrong — the name of their esteemed Guvnr. Having crawled out from under a table, apologies to anyone who might have written to the wrong Swede, and everyone please note the Governor of MN is Arne Carlson.

Sydney tolls: The Eastern Distributor is designed with 7 toll collection lanes we are told, not 6. Could have sworn we saw plans showing 6 but must have been wrong, so the potential backups from feeding 3-travel lanes into a manual toll plaza may not be as bad as we suggested. Still we are told they would like to go to highway speed e-toll like Melb City Link but they feel they cannot move until the government owned Harbor Bridge decides on its system. Another correction— at the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Tunnel they toll traffic on the eastern lanes which go southbound (they drive on the left side of the road.) And the new Eastern Distributor which plugs into these Harbor crossings will be tolling northbound traffic, not southbound as we wrongly reported (TRnl#23 Jan 98 p10). We looked at the map with American eyes and got it back to front last issue, just as when we drove there recently we activated the windshield wipers each time we wanted to signal a turn or lane change, and repeatedly fumbled with the door handle before we found the stick shift to change gears.