A toll on trucks appears to be a condition of federal funding for the $1.6 billion Perth Freight Link roads project, Premier Colin Barnett says.
A toll on trucks appears to be a condition of federal funding for the $1.6 billion Perth Freight Link roads project, Premier Colin Barnett says.
The project includes a five-kilometre extension of Roe Highway from the Kwinana Freeway to Stock Road in Coolbellup, with the aim of removing thousands of heavy vehicles from other roads, including parts of Leach Highway.
The project also includes upgrades to sections of Stock Road, Leach Highway, High Street and Stirling Highway, as far as Marmion Street in East Fremantle. The upgrades will include intersection modifications so that trucks will avoid traffic lights until they reach Marmion Street.
The federal government has committed $925 million to the project and the rest is expected to come from the WA government ($230 million) and the private sector ($445 million).
Asked whether the link would be the state's first toll road, Premier Colin Barnett said: "The way it was presented in the federal budget was along those lines."
Asked if he read that as a condition of federal funding, Mr Barnett said: "Yes, I did."
But any decision about whether to charge a toll on heavy vehicles would be made by the state government, he said, ruling out a toll on passenger vehicles.
"We can see merit in some system of charging heavy vehicles," Mr Barnett said.
"This freight route will benefit them in cost and time savings, and I think they should contribute in some way toward it."
Member for Perth and former WA transport minister Alannah MacTiernan said Labor was opposed to the "completely ridiculous" project because it also needed an eastern bypass around Fremantle to be effective.
"All this does is take the traffic off Kwinana Freeway and put it on Stock Road - it doesn't get you into the Fremantle port. The traffic still has to go back up onto Leach Highway," she told ABC radio.
And by the time the link was open to traffic in 2021, Fremantle port would have reached capacity, requiring an additional container facility at Kwinana.
"So the whole trajectory of road traffic will be a lot further to the south," Ms MacTiernan said.
"This will be the most expensive five kilometres of road."