In message , at 12:21:14 on Mon, 9 Dec 2019,
Graeme Wall remarked:
As for money to burn, it started as a toll road, but then got
swept* up into a government-funded "shovels ready" project to
stimulate the* economy* due to the construction jobs created.

And there was me thinking that after the M6T disaster all of the
constriction companies told HMG to "go swivel" when they sounded
them* out about taking on the risk of the tolling

The difference with the A14, and why being a toll road was always
a rather dodgy public policy decision, is that it would
effectively have* a monopoly on that particular flow, something
which could never have* been said about the M6T. Think more like
the Dartford Crossing.

*AIUI it wasn't suggested as a monopoly as the plan was to have
through* traffic tolled, local traffic un-tolled. *And the
insurmountable problem with that was "how do you construct it so*
that it is fair to local traffic without having a non-negligible
volume* of through traffic trying to become local traffic and
clogging up the* local route, whilst leaving the through route underused".

Which is the problem with all road-pricing schemes.

Didn't seem to bother the people funding the Dartford Crossing.

Don't recall a rat-run being available to avoid the Dartford crossing.

It's called the Rotherhithe Tunnel.
--
Roland Perry