Dialogue: Tolls backlash intensifies as district council dithers

By ROSALEEN MACBRAYNE

It might be a trailblazer for road funding but the Tauranga District Council has a tiger by the tail with its continuation of harbour bridge tolls: what to do with the growing number of defiant drivers who have cried "enough" and are refusing to pay.

The besieged council backed itself into a corner in its bungled efforts to deal with a situation which threatens to escalate. But now it has come out punching, preparing to prosecute offenders.

In an extraordinary lapse of common sense, the local authority sanctioned - albeit briefly - a free ride for protesters a few weeks ago. Toll-booth attendants paid the charge for a minority of mutinous motorists to keep traffic flowing and to avoid snarl-ups for those law-abiding citizens going about their business.

The gesture was meant to make the point that someone has to pay, but it backfired. So the council changed tack and, some would say, overcorrected, bringing in Big Brother measures.

There are now face-level surveillance cameras at the toll booths and defaulters are being handed notices warning that they risk prosecution. Conviction could bring a fine of up to $500 and costs.

While the scare tactics (or could they be delaying tactics?) have worked on some, other motorists see this as intimidatory and provocative. It might also signal that the council has lost its way.

Previous nervous threats to close the bridge or take legal proceedings against non-payers were not acted on. And when tickets are issued, things will get messier.

If the council does go ahead with prosecuting any of the hundreds of commuters who have been tailgating their passage through the toll barriers for weeks, or simply refusing to hand over $1 at the booths, the action could rebound.

A court confrontation is what the rebels want, so they can contest the legality of the council's use of bridge tolls for other roading projects - some not yet built and unlikely even to be used by residents on the Mt Maunganui side of the harbour bridge.

Individuals pay up to $500 a year in tolls to travel between Tauranga and the Mount - on top of their annual rates. Trucking firms fork out $7000 to $12,000 a month. The council could face a hefty sum in reparation if its creative use of toll revenue is found to be invalid. The issuing of infringement notices to non-payers could well open the floodgates, so to speak.

But in not calling anyone to account, the Tauranga District Council would appear to lack the courage of its convictions. In times past, when no one seriously took issue with the bridge toll, you wouldn't have made it past the barrier arm without handing over your $1 or pawning something of value at the booth.

People have willingly paid for the convenience of using the harbour crossing since 1988. But public patience started wearing thin when - unlike the Auckland Harbour Bridge and the Lyttelton tunnel - the Tauranga toll carried on long after the cost of the construction should have been met.

The district council's determination to milk even more dollars from its cash cow is a public relations faux pas in local body election year. It owes it to the vast majority of obedient citizens to end the farce now, lift the toll and put its energies into finding new avenues for road funding.

The users of the Tauranga harbour bridge have paid - through the nose. The council should stop pussyfooting around and call it quits.