\u201cAnyone who was directed on to State Highway 1 during the period when the free alternative route was unavailable, and who applies to have their toll charge removed, will have the fee waived.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodney Local Board member and road safety advocate Geoff Upson. Photo \/ Geoff Upson<\/p>\n
The toll on the Northern Gateway Toll Road costs $2.60 for light vehicles and $5.20 for heavy vehicles per single trip.<\/p>\n
The law requires that a toll road can only be tolled when a free alternative is available for motorists to use.<\/p>\n
Rodney Local Board member Geoff Upson said the refund should be automatic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is disappointing, it should be automatic and all tolls waived,\u201d Upson said.<\/p>\n
AA senior policy adviser Sarah Geard said every toll road must have a \u201cfeasible\u201d alternative route available.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the alternative route is closed, our view is that NZTA should turn the cameras off and not charge tolls, and advise motorists that tolls are being waived via variable messaging signs before the toll road,\u201d Geard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always concerning when a road is subject to slips. Ideally, the free alternative route to a toll road would always be available. But when this isn\u2019t the case \u2013 due to the likes of slips or a crash \u2013 NZTA should take all reasonable steps to ensure motorists can still get around, including informing them that tolls will be waived on the neighbouring toll road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Upson promotes himself as a road safety advocate.<\/p>\n
He also has concerns about the Waiwera route being used as the \u201cfree option\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the road has had a few issues with slips in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cLots of people use this route and in particular lower socioeconomic members of society who are genuinely the most vulnerable to minor shifts in petrol prices, and\/or forced additional travel distances and costs. Some families are struggling to get by and the $5.20 cost [for a return trip] does add up.\u201d<\/p>\n
NZTA told the Herald decisions on whether to proactively suspend tolling when a free alternative route was unavailable considered factors including the length, nature and timing of the closure, as well as pressure on the wider transport network.<\/p>\n
The agency said the August 29 slip was \u201cless significant\u201d than the one that closed the highway for 35 hours over Anzac weekend this year, and said the road reopened \u201crelatively quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result, tolling remained in place and vehicles travelling on the Northern Gateway Toll Road were charged as part of the normal tolling process,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
NZTA said the closure on August 29 had a limited impact on traffic, with an additional 101 trips recorded on the toll road.<\/p>\n
Anyone directed on to State Highway 1 while the alternative route was closed could contact NZTA to apply for a waiver or reimbursement.<\/p>\n
Katie Bradford is a Senior Correspondent at the Herald. She has been a broadcast journalist for over 20 years and was based in the press gallery for 10 years. She specialises in politics, business and Auckland issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAnyone who was directed on to State Highway 1 during the period when the free alternative route was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,124,18432,37637,36355,71,12315,1333,6036,685,5829,51720,3945,111,139,7977,69,1523,289524,289523,6851,1314,223,42032,6306,111476,4767,9184,197],"class_list":["post-588331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-could","tag-did","tag-directed","tag-eligible","tag-from","tag-gateway","tag-get","tag-know","tag-last","tag-many","tag-motorists","tag-motorway","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-northern","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-phoi","tag-phoiwarkworth","tag-refund","tag-road","tag-the","tag-toll","tag-use","tag-warkworth","tag-weekend","tag-yet","tag-you"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}