Maintaining the State highways costs 27 euros to each Spaniard per year, 30% more than in 2016

Tolls have become an unexpected topic of debate in the final stretch of the electoral campaign. The Government actively and passively insists that it does not intend to charge for the use of highways and highways, but the European Commission affirms that it must do so from 2024 because it committed to doing so in the recovery plan. Whatever the resolution of this mess, the truth is that although in Spain drivers do not have to pay to drive on most of the roads in the State, this does not mean that they leave for free. On the contrary, the maintenance and operation of the road network will cost taxpayers 1,212 million this year. Or what is the same, 27 euros for each Spaniard.

This is reflected in the spending program on maintenance and operation of roads of the state network included in the General State Budget for 2023. Investment in maintenance has been growing in recent years, to the point that the cost forecast for this year is 30% higher than budgeted for 2016.

It must also be taken into account that, in recent years, actual spending has been higher than initially planned. Especially between 2018 and 2020, years in which the 2018 budgets were in force, extended twice. Thus, in 2022 the Government had recognized payment obligations in this item for a total of 1,295 million euros, almost 100 million above what was contemplated in the public accounts.

In total, the State will spend almost 2,800 million euros this year to build new roads or maintain existing ones. A figure that multiplies by five, for example, the spending on railway infrastructures (500 million) and that doubles the investment in water infrastructures.

What formulas are there to pay for use?

With the figures in hand, the crux of the matter is who should finance the road network, the users or all taxpayers? Those who bet on the former point out that this formula is fairer and would make it possible to allocate valuable budgetary resources to more productive investments such as education or research.. In addition, it would be compatible with the principle of “who pollutes, pays”, which the European Commission proposes in environmental matters.

In fact, to cover the expenditure on road maintenance that is currently covered by taxes, the amount that would have to be collected would be relatively small.. If one cent were charged per kilometer traveled on high-speed roads, as the Government came to propose privately in 2021, it would practically be enough. According to data from the Ministry of Transport, in 2021 the vehicles that circulated on Spanish motorways and highways covered 104,376 million kilometers. At one cent per kilometer, the collection would amount to 1,044 million.

The problem is that applying this formula is difficult. For charging per kilometer to be viable, thousands of gates and cameras would have to be installed to control traffic, something that would take a significant period of adaptation, says Pablo Sáez, president of the employers' association of infrastructure conservation and exploitation companies (ACEX).

Sáez proposes two other formulas with which highways could be financed without using general budgets. One of them would be to implement the vignette system applied by several Central European countries. With this route, the driver would pay an annual flat fee based on his vehicle that would give him the right to drive without limit of kilometers for a certain time.

The president of ACEX calculates that with an annual fee of 30 euros it would be enough to cover the maintenance of the State road network and with 85 for the entire national network. Another possibility would be to apply a surcharge of one cent to refueling and allocate that income exclusively to conservation. In any case, Sáez insists that whatever solution is adopted, it should be applied to the entire national network and not just to state highways.. “The real conservation problems are in the regional network, which concentrates the majority of conventional roads. They have a very limited budget and have little room left to spend on maintaining their roads,” he says.

As a reference to ensure good maintenance of the network, Sáez believes that allocating 2% of the network's equity value (107,600 million euros in 2021) would be a good figure. We would be talking about 2,140 million euros.

The 'lobby' of the drivers opposes

Those who bet that the cost is assumed by all taxpayers argue that, although not everyone drives, these infrastructures generate a global benefit. This is how they see it from Associated European Motorists (AEA), the drivers' lobby.

“A good infrastructure network acts as an engine for the economy and creates a system of solidarity with depressed areas,” says the president of AEA, Mario Arnaldo, in a conversation with 20minutos. From the AEA, they oppose the generalization of tolls and point out that drivers already indirectly pay for the infrastructure through taxes that only they pay. For example, the VAT that is levied on the acquisition of vehicles or the excise taxes on hydrocarbons, the collection of which goes to the public coffers.

In addition, Arnaldo points out that charging tolls for highways and motorways could shift traffic to secondary roads, with the consequent risk to the accident rate that this could entail. “In Spain the miracle [de la reducción de mortidad por trafico] has not been the card by points, it has been the unfolding of highways of the national network, the dual carriageways. The frontal collision in overtaking disappeared”, argues the president of the AEA.

Arnaldo insists that the ball of the tolls is in the government's court, despite the forceful reaction of Brussels so that these are generalized from 2024. In addition, he sees it as contradictory that the Government has approved a program to recover toll highways to make them free “to then hack 22,500 kilometers of highways.”