australia

Sydney's first tollroad in the automobile era, the M4 heading west out of Sydney is no more. As of midnight Feb 15 the 20 year concession held by State Wide Roads expired, the road was turned over to the state of New South Wales (NSW), and toll collection ended.

An average of 100k vehicles use the six lane expressway each day.

Transurban the Melbourne Australia-based toller reports 2009 second half (H2) toll revenue of A$416m, a 6% increase on 2008H2. Based on A$=90cUS that's $840m/yr. Operating costs were reduced 3.9% to an annual $183m. Underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation & amortization (EBITDA) grew 12.4% to an annual rate of $601m.

The Associated Press reports from Australia: "Officials said panic and the freight-train speed of the walls of flames probably accounted for the unusually high death toll."

Since when were freight trains a metaphor for speed? What's this AAR propaganda?

Freight trains are loud certainly, but fast?

Bush in most english-speaking countries is low vegetation - the synonyms being shrub, brush or scrub - nothing more than 10 or 15 ft (3 to 5m) in height. So when Americans read of bushfires in Australia they usually think of small stuff burning. Bush, brush. They think of California coast "bRushfires" with the R. Wikipedia obviously written by an American or an Englishman follows this misleading usage.

Sydney Harbour Bridge, an Australian icon and one of the oldest and largest toll operations in Australia went cashless Sunday morning (2009-01-11) about 8am local time. Tolls were collected by hand for the last time from a motorist who was presented with a framed certificate attesting to him being the last person to pay a cash toll to a toll collector on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The great global financial fiasco has its fun side. Mrs Fang He, apparently an emigrant Chinese woman filed with the Australian Stock Exchange November 5 that she had become, under the rules of trading, a "substantial holder" of stock in BrisConnections, a recently formed toll concession in Brisbane, Australia's third city. She bought 32.3 million shares ('units' there) or 8.6% of the equity of BrisConnections.

E-TOLL STANDARDS

Australia goes 600k big on CEN

PUBLIC ISSUE

Australian mutual fund boosts pikes