Spring Vacation 2010 - French Autoroute

Koblenz to Chasseneuil sur Bonnieure is 977 km. The plan was to head to Chasseneuil as quickly as possible, spend a few days there and then work our way back visiting Loire valley and the cathedral in Chartres.

So on Sunday we spent some 9 hours driving, mostly on the French equivlent to the Autobahn, know as the Autoroute.  About 450 km of this was toll road. The toll road was great. They were smooth as can be, I don't remember rough spots. And there were almost no trucks. The non-toll portions were also good road, although certainly not as improved as the toll portions. There was some congestion as we passed through the southern part of Paris, but there was no toll there.

Certainly traveling on Sunday was one reason for the lack of congestion on our trip. But another reason for these wonderful, uncrowded road was the toll. The cost of those 450 km was 40€ (between $55 and $60). Pretty stiff tolls by anyone's standards. However, we checked on what it would mean to avoid the toll roads on the same trip, it would mean a 16 hour trip. Is 40€ worth a time savings that makes a two day drive into a single day?

Still we wondered about the logic of such high tolls. Well it does seem to keep the Autoroute free of trucks which helps the traffic flow and reduces maintenance cost, it forces those trucks onto smaller highways that often runs through small towns.