The abolition of tolls for driving on highways and expressways, which was announced at the PiS convention by Jarosław Kaczyński, does not seem as attractive an offer as increasing the 500+ to PLN 800 or free medicines for young people and senior citizens. However, it has a great symbolic dimension. After more than 30 years of the Third Polish Republic, the state finally makes a friendly gesture towards drivers. and passengers.
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Finally, how long could you wait. Finally, this absurd, dishonest, predatory practice in the form of collecting highway and highway tolls is coming to an end. After 34 years of free Poland, the most milked cows – drivers and passengers of cars – could experience kind treatment by the state. Driving is almost as burdened with taxes and fees as drinking alcohol. Like it was a luxury thing, some kind of whim. While it is possible to find some intellectual and moral justification for the excise tax on alcohol, for example in relation to the cost of treating abusers, it is incomprehensible to levy huge fees and taxes on transportation. There are two justifications – because it is very easy to collect beloved money for the budget, and excise duties are everywhere in Europe, so it must be here too. It doesn’t matter that it’s stupid and harmful.
Yes, I know roads have to be built for something. That goes for schools too, so why don’t we pay taxes on going to school? Police and fire stations also need to be built and maintained, but no one pays taxes on fire alarms. I know the examples are absurd, but unfortunately they fit. It is impossible to live without communication and transport. Without movement and energy it is absurd to put special taxes on such vital things. But let’s leave the discussion about this aside. That’s for another story.
The abolition of motorway tolls is a momentous event that will be appreciated. May it herald a new way of thinking, a new treatment of those who use cars, ie all citizens. For years, the inhabitants of progressive and purely European cities (increasingly dirtier and dingier) such as Warsaw, Łódź etc. have been held hostage by urban activists. It’s hard to find a more harmful, more disruptive group than these public transport and bike freaks. It seems that in the blink of an eye, with the help of the Union and some eco fanatics, they will destroy not only our lifestyle, but also the economy and social ties. You must defend yourself against it with all your might.
An illustration of this view is an interview by Polsat News with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. One of the questions posed by the curious, probing Piotr Witwicki was about free highways. The journalist quoted the opinion of city activist Jan Mencwel on Twitter.
Do you know what the main effect of “free” highways will be? Even more people will decide that the only way to travel is by car. And then you are amazed that there are gigantic traffic jams on the highways. It’s not populism, it’s just stupidity that won’t improve anything.
He illustrated the comment with a photo of a traffic jam on a Los Angeles freeway.
Mencwel threatens that free highways will be effective “increased traffic volume, congestion and the risk of accidents, leading to congestion on roads built for hundreds of billions of zlotys”.
Witwicki continued to quote some city activists and accused the prime minister on their behalf “For example, the whole world is moving away from cars in favor of railroads. Count on cars.”
It is shameful that this nonsense is quoted, that the Prime Minister is forced by his position to comment politely on it. Demagoguery, populism, intellectually nonsensical arguments have taken over the minds of many journalists and politicians. No railway in Poland, nor any mass communication within 100 years will replace car transport. Unless urban activists plan to soon liquidate villages, smaller towns and small towns in Poland and instead build a megalopolis like Tokyo or Seoul, where 40 million citizens are crammed together.
Freeways are the backbone network for roads across the country. Contrary to the opinion of intellectually excluded urban activists, they are used not only to travel from Warsaw to Gdańsk or Poznań, but also from Kiermozie in Mazowsze to Warubie in Kujawy, or from Cynów in Podkarpackie to Ścinawa in Lower Silesia.
City activists’ comments boil down to the fact that cars are bad. They are obsessed with this, paranoid and eager to decorate all of Poland according to their mania. All in the name of these activists – urban activist, is the secret of their intellectual and communicative exclusion. They think they all live in Mokotów or Wilanów in Warsaw, or in Kazimierz in Cracow, and that they only have such a limited perspective. He gets on a train in Warsaw to go to Sopot for a party. Almost 70% of Poles live in rural areas (40%) and in smaller or completely small towns. Building, in accordance with the obsessions of activists, a mass communication system, or on scooters, at the expense of cars means 30 million citizens are excluded from communication, not to mention those who also live in big cities.
One problem is door-to-door transport, which is crucial to the economy. Next is vital, existential issues for the inhabitants of small towns. It is hallucinations that in February someone will go shopping by bicycle from Brzyków to Burzenin (Lodz), or from Jurgów to Rzepiski (Spisz in Lesser Poland), etc. It is also about lifestyle, the right to travel freely, to visit, maintain family ties, make friends. Traveling is building a social fabric. No one will ever go by mass transport from Szadek (population 2000, Łódzkie Voivodeship) to Roztocze and visit the sculpture museum in Orońsko near Radom, Sienkiewicz manor in Oblęgorek (Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship), although on the way to Lublin region, these two places have . No one will ever take a bus or train to an agritourism farm in Kadzidłowo in Masuria and a stud farm in Bogusławice (Łódź Voivodeship), or to a baptism in Podsutki in Podlasie. A resident of Pobyłkowo Małe has the right to easily reach the office or shop in Wierzbica (Mazowsze) and not wade through the snow from home 2 kilometers to the bus stop, which arrives twice a day in February. Or once.
The destruction of motorcycle communications and transportation, as urban activists want, means the destruction of lifestyle and economic ruin. The idea of connecting the whole of Poland with rail and bus lines is insane, utopian, it means gigantic waste.
Motorways and highways form the backbone network for all roads in Poland. Traveling with them quickly, comfortably and safely is not a luxury, some premium service, but vital for the citizens and the whole country. The beneficiaries of free ways are not only demonic rulers, as it seems intellectually excluded, but everyone. For example, the mother, who takes the son of Nysa (Opolskie) to Iwonicz (Podkarpackie) to the sanatorium, and the family who bought the furniture. Wherever you go by car, it’s easier and safer thanks to the fact that there are highways, even if you don’t use them. They take traffic off smaller roads and make them more manageable. It is obvious.
City activist of Mencwel. People won’t suddenly hit the highways and drive extra just because they’re free. If they go from a smaller road to a highway, because you don’t have to pay more for that, that’s very good. After that, the fee will be waived. And not standing in traffic jams for hours at the toll point.
Source: wPolityce