You pays your money (or not)...

I live quite close to the M6 Toll road, and latest figures show that the road is still only being lightly used, despite constant delays and hold-ups on the M6 itself. Not that surprising perhaps when you consider that it costs £3.50 a pop to use it. Hardly small change. Of course, those who run it have to bear in mind that they can hardly justify charging people for using the road unless they can pretty well guarantee a free-flowing journey. In other words, they don't want to attract too much traffic onto it, and set their charges accordingly. So the idea that the road would be a general relief road for the M6 was never really on - it was only ever going to be an alternative for the relatively well-heeled.