Melbourne tolls up 64 per cent
December 3, 2008 by Matt Brogan
Toll prices on Melbourne’s CityLink Tollway have risen by 64 per cent in the nine years since it opened to a cap today of $6.21, triple that of the rate of inflation.
Since construction, motorists have paid more than $2.2 billion in tolls and fees to use the Tollway which connects Melbourne Airport and the North-Western Suburbs to the City and South Eastern suburbs, a hefty price considering the road cost $2 billion to build.
Under the contract signed with the then Kennett government, CityLink is allowed to increase its fees to match inflation or by 4.5 per cent a year – whichever is greater.
Transurban CEO Chris Lynch says motorists use his company’s roads because they have no alternative.
“Our roads generally are in heavily congested and heavily populated urban areas, and most of the trips on our roads are more by compulsion than by choice,” Mr Lynch said.
The road will remain tolled until 2034.
CarAdvice are keen to hear your opinion via our comments section. Now the road is paid for, should tolls be scrapped? Let us know.
Print it: 
if they won’t remove the toll they should at least reduce the toll fee
does the toll also pay for repairs? or are tax payers paying that anyway?
Tolls should only ever be to pay off the cost of building the road. Once the road is paid off, get rid of the toll.
Building the road/hwy is a one off cost and it’s fixed.
In the long run, maintenance cost will overtake the build cost. Thus the additional reason behind tolls (assuming that the toll goes to maintaining the particular stretch of hwy)
Correct me if i’m wrong, but these roads run by private companies ? That’s the problem. If the road has paid for itself in 6 years, at a lower toll rate. That’s somewhere around, lets be conservative and say $360 Million a year. Now they’ve upped the price over this time, one would have to presume that over the next 28 they’re going to pocket well over $10 billion.
Thank god I don’t live in melbourne…
lol
Trouble is come 2010 Brisbane will have a new gateway bridge and new a series of tunnels under the city itself becoming a Toll infested place to live also.
It can stay tolled but should not rise so much. I remember the day when you use to beable to get from the airport and home for $4 and then a max of 8 for the round trip.
They have made there money. Victorians have payed for it now. Now lets see City link toll another road and not the airport road.
Lets just say whatever the toll is for the road out of Melbourne, it’s money well spent.
Hey my wife uses this everyday to go to and from work. I believe it should be tolled. What people don’t realise is that somebody has to pay! If its not the users of the road then it will be everybody else through their taxes. People are happy to say “Oh it should be free” but when asked if they are happy to pay an extra $50 a year in tax they aren’t so happy.
The new eastlink I will probably use once a year. I don’t think I should be paying for it and would much rather pay $4.50 or whatever the one time I use it a year.
Good one Sgt Sweetchuck. The best view of Melbourne is in the rear view mirror as one leaves the god forsaken place. As the actress Ava Gardner said in the late 60’s, she could not think of a better place to make a movie about the end of the world, when they were filming the movie On the Beach.
Sgt.Sweetchuck Says:
“Lets just say whatever the toll is for the road out of Melbourne, it’s money well spent.”
And your lame attempt at humour is worth nothing. How ironic.
JML, 4/5ths of the Aus population think it’s funny, it’s just those “sensitive” Vics that don’t.
Besides I have never spoken to anyone that wasn’t glad to leave Melbourne (or Sydney for that matter) after a visit.
Bret – Very few people from Sydney or Melbourne have actually visited Adelaide or Perth as most of them appear to suffer from a condition I like to call East Coast-itis
I have friends and relatives in Sydney and when I told them I was moving [back] to Adelaide… the majority of them asked “why would you move to Adelaide? I asked them “have you ever been there?” they replied “no but why would you want to…?”
Then when I told them I was moving to Perth they asked “why wouldn’t you want to move back to Sydney?”
Note to Sydney-siders and Melbournians: Adelaide and Perth don’t have toll roads; and they have a more complete road network.. with things known as street signs.
The thing that bugs me is, how does the government decide which bridges/tunnels will be built and provided for free to the public and which ones will be built by private companies and tolled out at excessive rates?
Why should people get to drive over all the free bridges in the city of Brisbane while anyone working out near the gateway gets stung everyday? I paid for the bridges in the city with my taxes, why shouldn’t the gateway bridge be the same?
So when you consider that a place like Adelaide has just over 1 million people and a place like Sydney has approximately 4 million people.
You’d think that Adelaide that would have more Toll roads than Sydney given that there is 1/4 of the number of people for the government to get the money from inorder to pay for the construction and maintenance of the roads
Yet Sydney has 4 times as many people so they should have s–t loads more money than Adelaide [particularly when you recall that the 2000 made a record profit - didn't it?]
Ooops last sentence should read
Yet Sydney has 4 times as many people so they should have s–t loads more money than Adelaide [particularly when you recall that the 2000 Olympics made a record profit - didn’t it?]
JML, 4/5ths of the Aus population think it’s funny, it’s just those “sensitive” Vics that don’t.
Besides I have never spoken to anyone that wasn’t glad to leave Melbourne (or Sydney for that matter) after a visit
Well considering we have the highest growth rate of any Australian city, I’m assuming that there arn’t too many people leaving our fair city
Victoria also makes up 1/4 of the population, not 1/5
CityLink was built at a time when the state could ill afford to complete the project itself – what we get is three decades worth of tolls
The city benefits from having the tollway/tunnels, so i don’t see the major issues with having tolls, just the excessive price increases
I am another who agrees that the best view of Melbourne is the rear view mirror.
What a shiit hole of a place !
Who was that famous American again that called Melbourne the “arse end of the earth” ?
matty b,
your spot on.now if you were in gov’t,wouldn’t you be putting up your hand to build every single toll way’ed road in australia.i smell corruption here,in a mutli-billion dollar cover up,does anybody care?
Neil says:-
“Well considering we have the highest growth rate of any Australian city, I’m assuming that there arn’t too many people leaving our fair city
Victoria also makes up 1/4 of the population, not 1/5″
——————————————————–
Actually Neil you don’t, Brisbane and Perth have a higher growth rate, and I hear Melboring is slowing down rapidly as your manufacturing industry lays off thousands of people.
Hahahahahaha……
If you Melburians are getting a bit pissed off with your city, then come up to beautiful sunny Queensland where the economy is booming and the climate is better, we Queenslanders will welcome you with opens arms XOXOXOXO
hahaha,ummmmmmmmmm .WA is the better choice ! Economy even better,climate,isnt raining and its a dry heat not that horrible humidity! Oh and the place isnt full of OLD people…….and we dont have that upward infliction at the end of our sentenCCESSS !
at 8am one morning during peak hour on a motorway a semi trailer crashes into a toll booth completely destroying it
The manager calls his repair crew orders them to fix it and tells them he wants it up and running intime for the afternoon peak hour.. he then leaves.
at 2pm the crew chief calls the manager to tell him its all fixed up and running. The manager replies “I don’t believe it… I’ll be right there.”
The manager arrives back on the scene to inspect their work – when he notices that there is a clear gel over everything. “What’s this?” the manager asks…. The crew chief replies “Toll Gate Booth Paste.”
Having lived in Melb, Sydney & Brisbane, and had lengthy stays in Adelaide, Perth and Darwin let me say this..
Adelaide – Wheelnut, why on earth would you want to live in Adelaide? Dry dusty foul water boring little town that offers nothing. You answered that question perfectly by moving to Perth.
Sydney – superb if you’re wealthy enough to live by the water, terribly congested for everyone else.
Melb – brilliant night life, pub and live music scene, sporting capital, shame about the weather.
Perth – Just about perfect, except for the isolation and the rest of the country is a 4 day drive away.
Brissy – One of the dumbest towns on earth, very nearly ran out of water, completely lacking a road network, no daylight savings so it gets light at 4:30 in the morning! Sunshine Coast and the Goldy are however magnificent.
Where do I live now? Sunshine Coast. It’s about as close to perfect as I’ve found….!!
I didn’t forget Darwin, it’s just been so long since I’ve been there that I can’t comment with accuracy.