When big trucks meet small government

The dilemmas facing local government over roads were spelled out recently at the National Trucking Convention on the Gold Coast.
“Under current funding arrangements for local roads there is no linkage between the usage of local roads and how they are funded,” Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) president Geoff Lake told delegates.
“This means that over 80% of Australia’s road system has no guaranteed funding source except council rate revenue, which is already severely stretched meeting the various other responsibilities of councils.”
Supplemental road funding comes from state and federal governments on an ad hoc basis but that, by definition, varies considerably from year to year.
The matter is crucial for local government because their local road network is their biggest asset and usually the single biggest expenditure item in their budgets according to Councillor Lake.
Council rates are meant to support local roads for residents to access their properties. But through traffic by heavy vehicles imposes high wear and tear costs on lightly-built roads and bridges.
The ALGA supports NTC’s proposed incremental pricing measure for allowing extra payload for heavy vehicles because they see it as a way out of their dilemma over road network costs.
“Incremental pricing methodology may well provide the basis for true road pricing for heavy vehicles in the future and in that way, link-road usage to road funding,” Lake explained.
“A direct funding link in the future between road usage and road investment is a priority for local government.”
He thus suggested a way forward in allowing greater local road access for higher productivity vehicles which would pay their own way on council roads. But then came the big caveat.
“Councils have responsibilities to their local residents and they must make their own decisions in relation to their local road assets and their community’s priorities.
“Councils, as democratic bodies with responsibilities to local electors, must make their own decisions as they see fit on a range of priorities, each of them critical to different sectors of the community.”
The ALGA’s bottom line is that even if parts of local road networks in critical areas are upgraded to a standard to take HPVs, and even if those vehicles pay for the upgrades, there is no guarantee of access, even on suitable routes.
The big question asked from the body of the convention was can Australia afford a system that gives each individual local council the veto power over the use of HPVs?
There was no answer on the day.