Agency looks at toll for bikers

Motorcyclists could soon be paying the same as their car-driving counterparts to use Auckland's Northern Gateway toll road.

Although the Transport Agency has yet to make a formal decision, it says in a public consultation document that a toll for bikers is likely to be the same $2 each way as for general motorists.

Bikers can ride the $356 million toll road between Orewa and Puhoi for free, but the Transport Agency is considering whether it would be fairer if they start paying "just like other motorists".

That wording - and the $2 toll indication - has fuelled biker suspicions that the agency has already made up its mind.

Les Mason, Auckland branch president of the Bikers Rights Organisation of New Zealand (Bronz), said the agency had obviously pre-determined the issue and had been simply going through the motions of receiving submissions, which closed on Friday.

He said the same logic by which the agency charged $4 for trucks suggested a fair toll for motorcyclists would be $1 a trip.

That was because they took up less space, caused less congestion and imposed far less wear on the road than cars and trucks.

But given collection costs would exceed $1, it would be fiscally irresponsible to charge motorcyclists anything, Mr Mason said.

His comments follow a disclosure by the agency last month of an average transaction cost of $1.29 involved in collecting each $2 car toll, and as much as $2.70 for processing payments received by phone.

Even without costs associated with establishing the toll system, the average transaction cost over the first six months would have beent $1.06.

Mr Mason said in a submission to the agency that it should actively encourage motorcycle use, as a public good.

"Why should motorcyclists pay extra because motorists selfishly insisted on lugging two tonnes of unnecessary steel about with them?"

Though the issue was unlikely to stir anything like the outrage seen against the Accident Compensation Corporation's proposal to raise levies by up to $493 for large motorcycles, a "general principle of equity" was at stake on the toll road, he said.

The Transport Agency says that, depending on the level of interest in the issue, it may hold hearings before its board decides early next year whether to add motorcycles to its tolling net.

It says about 25,000 motorcycles represented just over 1 per cent of the almost two million vehicles that used the toll road in its first six months.

Although only 700,000 vehicles used the free - but longer - coastal route, which was previously the main road north of Orewa, Mr Mason said most bikers still preferred it "because it is a bit more fun on a motorcycle".

"Now that the toll road has taken a lot of traffic off it [the coastal route], it's not so congested."