The Harbour Bridge was paid off in 1988. The latest toll increase has gone too far

According to Nick Greiner, the grandfather of Sydney’s toll road network, “the grand old coathanger” was paid off in 1988 at more than three times the original cost forecast. It’s likely Sydney’s motorists have since repaid the bridge cost many times over, while the Harbour Tunnel was fully paid off in 2022.

Now, in an attempt to wring the neck of the grand old golden goose one more time, the Minns government has taken the opportunity to increase peak and off-peak tolls on the Sydney Harbour Bridge by 3.2 per cent from July 1.

The Harbour Bridge was paid off in 1988.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

The move to charge north shore drivers more has been on the cards since the first independent review of the city’s toll system by the former competition watchdog chairman Professor Allan Fels last year identified multiple failings, including the lopsided financial impact of tolls being felt greatest in western Sydney.

But the Minns government’s toll hike is a rip-off based on the easy option of robbing the north shore to supposedly pay the west.

Transport Minister John Graham confirmed as much when defending the rise, saying the increase would help pay for the $60 weekly toll cap, which mostly benefits motorists in Sydney’s west driving on roads operated by Transurban. “Drivers from the west often sitting in traffic, their tolls are going up. Similarly, drivers coming across other crossings will have similar arrangements. This is one approach across the city for everyone,” he said.

Meanwhile, back on the north shore, motorists suffer the same traffic snarls courtesy of ongoing disruption and congestion. And they have been doing so since 2022 thanks to Warringah Freeway upgrade construction works. Further, completion is not expected until sometime next year.

Graham has the gall to financially penalise north shore motorists on the specious grounds of easing the same indignity being visited on drivers in the west.

In fact, Fels also found a litany of problems besetting the most-tolled city in the world: tolls in Sydney were higher than necessary or desirable; the dominant toll road concessions given to Transurban could adversely affect competition for tolling concessions; high tolls may be a disincentive for motorists to use the shiny new infrastructure; and important details of public-private partnership arrangements on toll setting are not made public. Fels also suggested two-way tolling on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We can perhaps be thankful that the government has not taken up Fels’ two-way toll proposal. Yet.

But the truth is that Fels’ review was a holistic attempt at a structural solution to Sydney’s problematic toll world whereas Graham’s bridge hike is a Band-Aid fix at best.

In 1995, Bob Carr’s new government introduced a cashback scheme for local drivers using the M4 and M5. Now, four decades later, it is difficult to escape a sense that in choosing the easy and short-sighted political fix that unfairly soaks the north shore, the Minns government appears unable to grasp the wider picture and the need for a disciplined and equitable approach to reforming Sydney’s toll system.

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