Brisbane Roads to Avoid if You Are on a Budget

Brisbane Roads to Avoid if You Are on a Budget

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Posted 2014-02-14 by M.T. Ellisfollow
This morning I made a wrong turn onto a toll road and decided to see how much this mistake cost me. I still don't know because I can't figure out what part of the AirportLinkM7 I got stuck on, dammit.

I have compiled a list of the expensive roads I found:

On the north side there is the AirportLinkM7 tunnel, which connects the East West Arterial Road with the CLEM7, the Inner City Bypass, the local road network at Bowen Hills and the northern arterials of Gympie Road and Stafford Road at Kedron. The AirportLinkM7 also connects East West Arterial Road with Sandgate Road at Toombul. Got that? I sort of know what it says.

The prices for a car to travel through the AirportLinkM7 are:

Route 1: Between Bowen Hills and Kedron $3.53
Route 2: Between Bowen Hills and Toombul $4.48
Route 3: Between Kedron and Toombul $3.53

Here you will find a toll calculator for the AirportLinkM7, which has an interactive map to make it easier to understand what you are being charged for (providing you know where you are).

The Gateway Motorway runs over the Brisbane River connecting the north and the south sides of Brisbane. The toll points for the Gateway Motorway are on the southern side of the Sir Leo Hielscher Bridges (also known as the Gateway Bridges) in Murarrie. You will be charged a toll whether you travel north or south over the bridge. The toll for a car costs $4.13. You will also be charged $2.43 for traveling on the Gateway Extension at Kuraby. This extension runs through to the Logan Motorway at Drewvale.

There are three toll points on the Logan Motorway. The ones at Heathwood and Paradise Road will cost you $3.86 for a car and the toll point at Loganlea will cost you $1.56. So if you have to travel on the Logan Motorway from the Ipswich Motorway to Drews Road you will pass through three tolls with in a few minutes of each other at a cost of $9.28. You'll probably be heading home that way too, awesome.

The Go Between is another bridge over the Brisbane River that connects the north side to the south. The Go Between Bridge connects Coronation Drive and Hale Street in Milton on the Northside to Montague Road, Merivale and Cordelia Streets on South and will cost you $2.88 in a car.

The Clem7 is a tunnel that runs under the Brisbane River from Woolloongabba to Bowen Hills. It links the Pacific Motorway, Ipswich Road, Lutwyche Road, the Inner City Bypass and Shafston Avenue at Kangaroo Point. The CLEM7 and the AirportLinkM7 connect to make the M7 Motorway, which is said to improve the access from the Brisbane Airport to the southern suburbs.

It's actually quite amazing, when driving through the CLEM7, to know the 6.8km tunnel you are travelling in is actually 60 meters underneath the Brisbane River. This however, doesn't mean I want to pay $4.72 for the privilege.

Legacy Way is being built now. It is a tunnel that will connect the Western Freeway at Toowong to the Inner City Bypass at Kelvin Grove. Construction should be completed in 2015. Who knows how much this toll point will cost motorists.

When paying a toll for using the M7 you must pay AirportlinkM7, but if you are using the Gateway Motorway, Logan Motorway or the Go Between Bridge you are to pay go via/Toll costs by tolling point GoVia who are the 'Toll Payment Provider' for those toll points. To make things even more complicated, you must pay Flow to use the Clem7 Tunnel even though the Clem7 is operated by Queensland Motorways; who are the same 'Toll Road Operator' for the Gateway Motorway, Logan Motorway and the Go Between Bridge. Excuse me, what?

To make it easier the Toll Payment Providers will use each other's Toll Transponders to charge you. Just make sure your transponder is working and placed in the correct position on your windscreen.

As well as the toll, you're looking at fees for video matching if you don't have a toll transponder in your car, manual top-up fees if you don't want to set up an automatic deduction, late fees, lost transponder fees and the list goes on. These fees range from fifty cents to forty dollars.

No wonder I never look at my toll account statements. I just set up an automatic deduction from my credit card, stick my head in the sand and hope for the best.

What do you think of the tolls in Brisbane? Leave a comment below.

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106232 - 2023-06-12 12:21:54

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