New Brunswick tolls to go

In New Brunswick Bernard Lord the new 33-year old conservative premier is negotiating an end to tolls on the Fredericton-Moncton toll road. Tolls only provide a small proportion of debt service costs, but Lord gained office saying he’d scrap the tolls. Still, he has to negotiate his way out of a 1998 agreement with Maritime Road Development Corp led by the Spanish roadbuilder and toll operator Dragados with Canadian Miller Paving and GTMI of Quebec. Local observers say tolls were not a major issue in the campaign but that Lord wants to fulfil his promise.

“We are totally committed” to removing tolls Lord’s transport minister Mary-Ann Blaney, said soon after the election. She said it would “reduce costs.”

The defeated Liberals said a no-tolls arrangement would increase costs $150m. Construction cost of the road is put at $420m. Meanwhile work on the road proceeds apace. It is 195km of 2x2-lanes though a portion of this was built by the state but included as tollable road.

About 80% of the cost is supported by a complex lease back arrangement with the provincial government while 20% is toll-secured debt. Traffic volumes are expected to be quite small (under 10k vehs/day over most of the road.) Many sections of the road have such small volumes that it was deemed not worth collecting tolls. The highway was justified on economic development and safety grounds.

Of full motorway standard, it will have 20 interchanges and 5 major river crossings. 29km will be cut between Fredericton and Moncton because the new route is more direct and a time savings provided of an estd 35mins. Heavy trucks will be prohibited from NB-112, the old parallel free road and forced to take the mwy. Cars were due to pay 2.5c/km for a maximum toll of $5 while trucks would pay 1.5c/axle/km and about $20/full trip for a tractor-trailer.

A section of the toll road is already open and tolling around Moncton. Conservative politicians are supposed to be against taxes and philosophically in favor of people paying their way, but when it comes to votes they are often more politician than conservative, if they sense an anti-toll constituency.

Given the small traffic volumes, it is clearly an extravagance as a full 4-lane motorway and should have been designed in many of its legs as a single carriageway 3-lane road with alternating passing/breakdown lanes (see Aroostook pike, p23). That would have been a real savings of $150m, rather than the financial numbers game the politicians are playing.