Toll roads in SA, a short history

Reproduced here in it's entirety, my thanks to CharlesVan Onselen who is a research professor at the University of Pretoria for his excellent article, and Business Day for publishing it.

BACK in 1886, the discovery of huge reefs of gold on the Witwatersrand caught state president SJP (Paul) Kruger by surprise. The fiercely nationalist but extremely poorly educated Boers of the South African Republic (ZAR) had only just regained their independence from Britain. The earlier, modest mineral discoveries around Barberton scarcely prepared him or his political constituency — made up largely of farmers — for the dramatic influx of foreigners into the country or for the transition from an agrarian to a more industrialised economy. The spectacular growth of Johannesburg, in particular, demanded an infrastructure capable of servicing a modern economy and an urbanising society. A poorly equipped administration, supported by a coterie of handpicked Dutch experts, managed as best it could.

Complex regional politics militated against the rapid development of an integrated railway system capable of delivering mining machinery to the Rand cheaply or efficiently. It was not until 1895 that the ZAR was fully connected to the emerging, regional rail network. A reliance on Afrikaner transport riders using ox wagons to bring in building materials, clothing and food supplies from the coast or the countryside contributed to Johannesburg’s high cost of living. Long-haul transport riders encountered increasing difficulty in obtaining grazing for oxen on overnight stops, while the condition of the roads, scandalously neglected, deteriorated.
Throughout 1886- 95, the Kruger administration remained under pressure from the mining industry and organised commerce to facilitate the arrival of the railways on the Rand. By the time the president got around to dealing with the problem, however, the mining industry was already in a short-lived recession caused by technical problems encountered in the gold-recovery process. He nevertheless persisted with plans for a nation- wide system of road tolls, primarily to raise revenue for the always hard-pressed treasury and, secondarily, to secure an improvement in the quality of the rutted highways. In late 1891, it was announced in the Government Gazette that, from December 1, ox wagons carrying loads of up to 6000lbs (about 2700kg) would be liable to a toll of 30 shillings on all main routes.

Lacking the administrative competence or expertise to run the system, the state looked instead to the market and private enterprise to manage the tolls. The right to collect tolls at stipulated points was put out to tender, with winning bidders being left to manage the risk of making a profit or sustaining a loss. Despite it being a hazardous business, scores of tenders were awarded and toll collectors appointed. The tolls, for some time, produced a handsome return. In just four months in 1894, for example, the state benefited to the tune of more than £9000 — the equivalent of between £4m and £5m (R46m-R58m) a year in current terms.

Right from the outset, however, tolls proved to be deeply unpopular. In urban areas, tolls were objected to because, it was claimed, they increased the cost of capital goods as well as food. They no doubt did; but Pretoria was always inclined to view Johannesburg as more of a cash cow than a city entitled to independent management. The mayor was appointed from the centre, by the government, not elected by the citizens.

Farmers and transport riders, too, objected for equally obvious reasons and, despite their cause being championed by a faction within the Volksraad that was increasingly opposed to Kruger, the president and his cabinet remained obdurately opposed to the abolition of the tolls or a meaningful reduction in charges. In practice, the system proved difficult to manage. It was the subject of endless complaints. Requests for exemption necessitated the appointment of additional clerks, thus swelling a public service not renowned for its efficiency, honesty, literacy or responsiveness. Some toll collectors let friends through without levying charges while others pocketed part of the proceeds. In some quarters, deep suspicions were aroused about where precisely the fees were going and few users seemed convinced the system benefited them. It was not clear the huge returns from tolls were producing a startling improvement in the quality of the existing roads, or funding new ones.

It was in the countryside, or on the outskirts of the city itself, however, where the system ran into its greatest opposition from the sons of the soil. Many farmers and transport riders would have nothing to do with them. They opened up new, often circuitous tracks and minor roads, circumventing existing drifts and highways, thereby giving rise to new problems of grazing, right of way and environmental degradation. Others drove directly through the gates, refusing to render payment for a system they deemed to be in conflict with natural justice. Landdrosts — the magistrates — were kept busy corresponding with their superiors and it proved difficult to estimate what secondary, indirect costs amounted to.

Two of the most hated tolls, however, could not easily be avoided. One of them lay on the road connecting the rich farming district from which Kruger hailed — Rustenburg — to the market at Pretoria, via the intervening Magaliesberg. A formidable toll house stood astride the natural constriction in the pass at Daspoort. The other was at Ferreira’s Battery, on the Kimberley Road exit from Johannesburg. They were the subject of endless complaints but the Kruger administration refused relief to regular users.

In April 1894, amidst an economic upswing, a party of masked Boers set out from the Rustenburg district for Daspoort, using a road that had previously been favoured by Irish highwaymen who had, some months earlier, held up and robbed a post cart of an enormous sum of cash. At the toll, the Boers overpowered the collector and dynamited the toll house. About 12 months later, the toll gate at Ferreira’s was also burnt to the ground under mysterious circumstances. The police, patriotic to the core, had no success in tracking down the perpetrators who, chances were, were all burghers. The ZAR tolling system — attacked, cheated, circumvented and sabotaged — did not collapse in the face of political objections from voters or popular resistance from road users. It may, however, have cost Kruger the votes of several farmers and transport riders in the 1893 presidential elections, which he won by the slimmest of margins.

The eclipse of the tolls was occasioned instead by technological advance in the shape of an integrated national railway system in 1895. With the switch from road to rail transport, tolls became less profitable and, in the end, economically unviable. In 1896, the government, acknowledging the advent of a new era, abandoned road tolls.

All of this prompts a few questions besides the fundamental one about "who owns the roads" and, can they bought and sold and, if so, who bears the profit or the loss?

Can states that lack administrative competence and easy access to an educated workforce ever manage tolling systems without the assistance of private enterprise and state- of-the-art technology? Are most of the funds raised from tolls ever fully employed to underwrite the maintenance or extension of the national road network? How are road and rail systems best integrated, and in what order are they best developed? Is the introduction of a system of road tolls an acknowledgment of failure, or a sign of success — is the economic tide rising or falling? Are tolling systems ever abandoned and, if so, when and why? What constitutes a fair toll and what are the estimates of attrition of revenue as a result of theft — either directly by the private operators, or from treasuries plundering funds for other projects? Or is the system foolproof? Is a state that introduces road tolls succeeding or failing?

These are enduring questions; most of them have been around since tolls were introduced at bridges in medieval times.

Governments come and go, ox wagon or pantechnicon, the game seems to remains the same. Answers — on postcards only please — to Pretoria, and then go out and vote as you see fit.