A69 Toulouse-Castres motorway toll, Digi Mart USA News (Toulouse-Castres, France): The commissioning of the A69 Toulouse-Castres motorway is due to take place Friday morning, Atosca, the motorway’s concessionaire, announced Thursday evening. The company operates the 53-kilometer motorway and called it “a new step for travel between Castres and Toulouse” in a statement.
Toll rates continue to draw criticism from local elected officials. A round-trip journey between Toulouse and Castres will cost roughly 20.40 euros, according to tariffs published Thursday in the Journal Officiel, in line with figures announced by Atosca.
“Like the people of Tarn, I feel betrayed!” said Christophe Ramond, president (PS) of the Tarn departmental council, who had supported the A69 from the start. “This amount does not match the commitment made by the State,” he added, calling the prices “far too high for the people of Tarn.”
Videoconference meetings between local authorities, members of parliament and the Ministry of Transport have taken place in recent days, according to consistent sources. However, no solution has yet been found to lower the A69 toll, which will be one of the highest in France.
“We are somewhat stuck,” Olivier Fabre (DVD), president of the Castres-Mazamet community of municipalities, told AFP. “The difficulty is that the State tells us it cannot find a legal solution to pay its share of the additional funding that was meant to reduce the toll,” he explained.
The high rate results from an unfavorable opinion issued by the Conseil d’État, which challenged the legality of an amendment providing for subsidies from local authorities (communities of municipalities, the department and the region) and the State. Those subsidies were intended to reduce the motorway’s toll by about 33%.
