Scrapping motorway tolls will improve safety says minister

Abolishing tolls for passenger vehicles on motorways will transfer some road traffic from alternative routes and help improve road safety, the infrastructure minister has told PAP.

On Sunday Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president of Law and Justice, the dominant party in Poland’s governing coalition, announced plans to scrap tolls for some vehicles on the country’s growing motorway network.

Andrzej Adamczyk said: "We expect the abolition of motorway tolls for passenger vehicles will result in the transfer of some traffic from other roads, currently chosen by drivers due to tolls on motorways. Therefore, the level of safety on national and local government roads in the proximity of motorways will increase, and we will save money on maintenance."

He added that the decision to abandon toll collection on state motorways means that "we will strive to dismantle toll collection points, the common and much disliked 'gates'".

When announcing the plan Kaczynski said the party planned to enact legislation on toll abolition "in the shortest possible period".

He added that in situations where the motorway is owned privately or leased "we promise that we will also deal with them over the next year".