Protests over high road tolls grow louder

Outrageously high expressway tolls are already the source of a rising public outcry on the mainland, and the People's Daily, the Communist Party's main mouthpiece, has joined the fray, publishing seven readers' letters on the topic yesterday.

In one letter, Yuan Xingjia of Lincheng town, under Xinghua in Jiangsu, said he had been charged 120 yuan last autumn for six round-trips on a highway to transport his harvest to downtown Lincheng.

Yuan said farmers should be allowed to pay tolls on a monthly or yearly basis to ease their financial burdens and cut congestion around tollbooths.

Ma Wen, a truck driver from Jingjing county, Hebei, who specialises in transporting construction materials, said he had to overload his vehicle; otherwise, he saw no way of making a profit because of high tolls and fuel costs as well as other expenses.

Ma said he had given up the idea of having his own trucking business because of unbearable fines for overloading, which were as high as 10,000 yuan (HK$11,800), at least 10 times the official fine, though he said drivers could pay 'brokers' in the area to set up a bribe that helped them avoid a large fine.

Most highways on the mainland are built with bank loans from regional governments to mostly state-owned road construction companies. These companies are then allowed to collect tolls to repay the loans and pay for road maintenance.