Santo Domingo.- The head of the RD Vial Trust Fund CoordinatingOffice on Monday justified the higher tolls, which aim to increase revenue fromRD$200 million to RD$300 million per month, to build, expand, recover and maintainroads and highways across the country.
Eyla Vargas also said Public Works conducts the necessarystudies to build other toll plazas on various roads.
Vargas, speaking with El Nuevo Diario editor in chief PersioMaldonado, said the Trust is open to dialogue, but affirmed that the right thingwould be to raise tolls from 30 pesos, to 104 pesos. "Most drivers have acceptedpaying the rebalanced fee."
The official said collections at toll stations managed bythe Trust were around RD$200.0 million per month (RD$2.4 billion per year), andwill now reach RD$300.0 million per month, or around RD$3.6 billion per year.
She said the higher tolls on the Las Americas, Duarte, 6 deNoviembre and Coral highways have now been indexed, which had been in effectsince 2002. "With this initiative the classification criteria is standardized,relating the payment amount directly to the number of axles of the vehicle, andwith the same some users will see their rates increases, while others receivereductions."