As the first toll road in England to charge motorists a direct charge for using the highway, M6 Toll represents a bold move to use alternative financing arrangements to the traditional shadow tolling approach to augment funding resources for highway development and minimize the project risk to the sponsoring Highways Agency.
While traffic continues to gradually grow and truck traffic continues to lag expectations, there was discussion about extending the M6 Tollway 50 miles north towards Manchester for a total cost of $6.5 billion (£3.5 billion). However, several factors caused the proposal to be abandoned in late July 2006, including:
• High cost of right-of-way needed for the project;
• Significant local opposition to tolling along the proposed corridor; and
• Lack of private partner interest in the project given the early performance of the existing M6 Tollway and the perceived risks of advancing such an expensive project in the face of local opposition.
Without a private concession team willing to tackle the project, the Government has elected to increase the capacity of the existing M6 expressway from 6 lanes to eight lanes, thereby reducing significantly the cost and land needed for the project. The main drawback of returning to the traditional approach to highway development is that the new capacity will not be available until 2017 at the earliest, assuming the Treasury has the funds to widen the road which is not assured.