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Other non-toll roads are financed using other sources of revenue, most typically gasoline tax funds. Tolls have been placed on roads at various times in history.
Early references include the (mythical) Greek Ferryman Charon charging a toll to ferry (dead) people across the river Acheron. Aristotle and Pliny refer to tolls in Arabia and other parts of Asia. In India, before the 4th century BC the Arthasastra notes the use of tolls. Germanic tribes charged tolls to travelers across mountain passes. Tolls were used in the Holy Roman Empire in the 14th century and 15th century.
In the 14th century, Castle LoevesteinCastle Loevestein Slot Loevestein in Dutch) is a medieval castle built by the knight Dirc Loef van Horne in 1368. It was built at a strategic location in the middle of the Netherlands, there where the Maas and Waal rivers come together (just west of curre in the NetherlandsDutch redirects here. For other uses, see Dutch (disambiguation). The Netherlands ( Dutch: Nederland is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a constitutional monarchy. It is located in northwestern Europe and borders the North Sea, Belgium was built at a strategic point where 2 rivers met, and charged tolls to boats sailing the river.
Until the seventeenth century most roads in EnglandEngland is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the four " Home Nations" which make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). Occupying the south-eastern portion of the island of Great Britain, England, other than surviving Roman roadThe Romans, as a military, commercial and political expedient, became adept at constructing roads; many long sections of them are ruler-straight, but it should not be thought that all of them were. The Roman roads were essential for the growth of their ems, were simple tracks through the earth, the term road indicating no more than a right of passage. Responsibility for the upkeep of the roads rested with three groups, the King (the King's Highways), the aristocracy owning the land over which the roads ran and the monasteriesA monastery is the habitation of monks. Originally: a hermit's cell. Christian monasteries are also called abbey, priory, charterhouse, friary, and preceptory The habitation of nuns is also called a convent. The communal life of a monastery is called ceno. The great land-owning monasteries were the most active in road and also bridge maintenance. The dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIIIHans Holbein the Younger Henry VIII ( 28 June 1491 28 January 1547) was King of England and Lord of Ireland (later King of Ireland) from 22 April 1509 until his death. He was the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII. He is greatly reduced the quality of the roads.
Parliament passed the upkeep of bridges to local settlements or the containing county under the 1531 Statue of Bridges and in 1555 the care of roads was similarly devolved to the parishes as statute labour. Every adult inhabitant of the parish was obliged to work four consecutive days a year on the roads, providing their own tools, carts and horses. The work was overseen by an unpaid local appointee, the Surveyor of Highways.It was not until 1654 that road rates were introduced. However, the improvements offered by paid labour were offset by the rise in the use of wheeled vehicles greatly increasing wear to the road surfaces. The government reaction to this was to use legislation to limit the use of wheeled vehicles and also to regulate their construction. A vain hope that wider rims would be less damaging briefly led to carts with sixteen inch wheels, they did not cause ruts but neither did they roll and flatten the road as was hoped.
The first turnpike road, whereby travellers paid tolls to be used for road upkeep, was authorised in 1663 for a section of the Great North Road in Hertfordshire. The term turnpike refers to a gate on which sharp pikes would be fixed as a defence against cavalry. Most English gates were not built to this standard, of the first three gates two were found to be easily avoided.
The first turnpike trust was established by Parliament through a Turnpike Act in 1706, placing a section of the London- Coventry- Chester road in the hands of a group of trustees. The trustees could erect gates as they saw fit, demand statute labour or a cash equivalent, and appoint surveyors and collectors, in return they repaired the road and put up mileposts. Initially trusts were established for limited periods, around twenty years. The expectation was that the trust would borrow the money to repair the road and repay that debt over time with the road then reverting to the local authorities. In reality the initial debt was rarely paid-off and the trusts were renewed as needed. The turnpike trusts were initially set up along the thirteen main roads from London, a process that lasted until 1750. From 1751 until 1772 there was a flurry of interest in turnpike trusts and a further 390 were established. By 1825 over 1,000 trusts controlled 25,000 miles of road in England and Wales.
The quality of early trust roads was very variable - standards for road construction were unknown and while they were better the roads still tended to become easily waterlogged. Road construction improved slowly, initially through the efforts of individual surveyors, such as John Metcalf in Yorkshire in the 1760s. But nineteenth century engineers made great advances, notably Thomas Telford and John Loudon McAdam. The work of Telford on the Holyhead Road in the 1820s reduced the journey time of the London mail coach from 45 hours to just 27 hours, the best mail coach speeds rose from 5-6 mph to 9-10 mph. In 1843 the London to Exeter mail coach could complete the 170 miles in 17 hours.
The rise of railway transport largely halted the improving schemes of the turnpike trusts. The London- Birmingham railway almost instantly halved the tolls income of the Holyhead Road. Unable to earn sufficient from tolls alone the trusts took to requiring taxes from the local parishes. The system was never properly reformed but from the 1870s Parliament stopped renewing the acts and roads began to revert to local authorities, the last trust vanished in 1895. The Local Government Act, 1888 created county councils and gave them responsibility for maintaining the major roads. The abiding relic of the English toll roads is the number of houses with names like "Turnpike Cottage", and occasional roadname: Turnpike Lane in north London has given its name to an Underground station
Today, the only remaining toll roads in the United Kingdom are a handful of tolled bridges and tunnels (e.g. Dartford Crossing, Second Severn Crossing, Mersey Tunnel, Tyne Tunnel) and some privately-owned toll roads, most of which are very small (e.g. in Dulwich College), the exception being the recently-built M6 Toll.