Josh Blake doesn’t know how he would survive without the $60 toll cap.
Blake and his wife each commute into the CBD from their home in Schofields every day, and both would struggle without the state government rebate.
Josh and Courtney Blake, with daughter Mackenzie at home in Schofields, depend on the $60 a week toll cap to manage their budget.Credit: Wolter Peeters
“We’re getting smashed by tolls every day, it’s suffocating. And while it isn’t perfect and doesn’t always work, the toll cap really helps. You’re getting something back at least.”
Blake drives to his job as a hotelier in the city because it gives his family flexibility, as his daughter is in daycare during work hours. “No one wants to get on a bus with a grumpy two-year-old.”
However, the long drives from Schofields to the CBD, a nearly 50-kilometre trip, add up, with a week of commutes costing Blake up to $200 without the toll cap – an increase of 233 per cent.
The cap was introduced in 2024 as a cost-of-living measure by the Minns government, and acts as a rebate to commuters if they spend more than $60 a week on tolls.
However, the cap is due to expire on January 1 and given tolls have an outsized impact on western Sydney commuters, there is growing anxiety many of those who benefit most will be left out in the cold.
The Minns government said it is working on a long-term solution in its negotiations with toll operators, but declined to outline what those measures could look like. In the meantime, families like Blake’s are left to hope for the best.
“It sometimes feels like we are being punished for living in western Sydney, to be honest,” Blake said.
“We need the flexibility for our daughter, so it is not as though we have a choice. And these tolls are on top of rental increases, insurance increases, petrol prices and everything else.”
A Kellyville resident who asked to remain anonymous, and who drives to work at Martin Place, says she spends more than $200 a week on tolls without the cap. She said her attempt to save for a house alongside her husband would be crippled without the cap.
“It would put significant stress on our general finances; we’d likely have to cut extracurriculars for our daughter. It would hurt, a lot,” she said.
She said her family was already “massively less inclined” to leave western Sydney for social or recreational reasons because of the tolls, and that if the cap was removed, she wouldn’t be “inclined to go to events or parties”.
“It deters people from going outside of their own bubble; people can’t leave. We have friends all over Sydney we can’t visit because we can’t afford it. It feels like we are penalised no matter where we are, though.”
The cap has resulted in more than $139 million being returned to 500,000 motorists, most from western Sydney. Another $100 million earmarked for the scheme remains unclaimed, despite higher-than-usual claims in June.
A spokesperson for the NSW government said “direct deal negotiations” were continuing, and that the government was determined to find a solution.
“We need to find a way to fund toll relief in the long term, and we are working on that, but we will not leave drivers without any support from January 1,” they said.
University of Sydney professor of transport David Levinson said he believed removing the cap would be likely to have an outsized impact on motorists from western Sydney.
“Without an alternative, the removal of the $60 toll cap will likely have a disproportionate impact on low-income households, especially in western Sydney, where toll exposure is high and mode alternatives are limited.
“The state’s toll system already skews regressive – this move, in the absence of a replacement policy, worsens it,” he added.
Levinson pointed to the Independent Toll Review, led by Professor Allan Fels and Dr David Cousins, which had identified that the toll network as it stands was a “poorly functioning patchwork” that left western Sydney drivers shouldering a greater financial burden.
It also found drivers from the region were often left without viable alternatives and faced a greater risk of “mobility-related social exclusion”.
Levinson said the only real solution in his eyes was for the NSW government to “consider acquiring these assets, enabling the implementation of a unified, distance-based tolling approach”.
The review also found that the financial impacts of the city’s tolls was felt the most in western Sydney, with its survey finding about 16 per cent of residents spend between $20-$49.99 a week, about 7 per cent spend between $50–$99.99 a week, and about 3 per cent spend over $100 a week.
For motorists who use toll roads more than once a month, the average monthly spend of residents in Blacktown, south-west Sydney and Parramatta on tolls was $95.90, $87.63 and $84.35, respectively, above the Greater Sydney average of $60.70.
The Sydney Morning Herald has opened a bureau in the heart of Parramatta. Email parramatta@smh.com.au with news tips.