Id Expensive Mexico Toll Roads!

Well, I can tell you that Ferrocarriles Mexicanos hasn't existed for years. It is now Kansas City Southern throughout all of Mexico.

If you send a package to Vizcaino, it should cost a fortune. It's in the middle of nowhere.

How many people on this forum have ever ordered something and had it shipped, either national or international? I do it for a living sending my reports to and from different locations. In over 20 years of working for a publisher, I have never had a lost document. Does it happen, sure it does just like everywhere else in the world.

People here seem to be living in the past in regards to Mexico. Let's make it a challenge and each of us order something via internet and lets track it. I'll do both international and national. For me, the bet is on. We can check time and cost.

Chris: I don't know about all the posts but Mexwanderer is very correct. Freight within Mexico is very expensive. I priced a trailer load of boxes that I could sell in Tucson. I was going to ship to Nogales, Sonora. The freight was nuts. About $4.50 a mile. You could ship the load in the USA for half that amount.

Moisheh

I've never heard so much baloney in all my life. I'm surprised anyone even reads this forum anymore. Who would want to come to Mexico after reading all this?

I hear a lot about promoting rving and tourism in Mexico, well it sure as heck isn't happening here.

With regard to single axle and duals I had a 14' camper mounted on a one ton chassis with four tires on the ground. Personnel in the casetas de cobros wereso sure the vehicle had duals they would charge me and I would refuse to pay. They then would exit the booth and come verify for themselves.

German tourists with Unimogs tell hilarious stories about broncos at various casetas de cobros.

I took in a special package yesterday for a store customer who needed a circuit board for his home A/C. The part was shipped from Nogales, Sonora Mexico. via ESTAFETA. Weight of part plus package .8 kg.

Price of part $33.61 = in US Dollars (pesos)

Price of shipping $18.34 = in US Dollars (pesos)

Time to ship. Nine days from Estafeta Office Nogales to Estafeta office Vizcaino BCS.

$51.95 for a part that could be shipped to anywhere in the continental USA for twenty-eight dollars. You want a good example while Mexico will never shake the image of being a poor country, I cannot think of a better example.

Or the three hundred and fifty five dollars in tolls (the rig doesn't flap its wings and fly back) to get agriculture products from Queretaro (the bajio) to Mazatlan. Culiacan and Obregon only supply some of the crops. For instance the nearest Milpa to where I am writing this, is three hundred fifty miles.

Ferrocarriles Nacionales is so fraught with fraud and corruption there isn't a chance in hell of Mexico adopting the mile long trains like are commonly seen near I-80 and I-40 in the USA.

So Sector Salud decides many medicamentos contralados (controlled medicines) demand a CURP number that only we citizens and Residentes Perminentes (the grade of immigrado that is forbidden to drive an non-made-in-Mexico car, can purchase the medicines. A CURP number is now needed. It's not just for for opioids, but also for sicotropic medications like PROZAC, and AMITRIPTYLEE. Well, there goes a few hundred millions of dollars worth of exports from medical tourism.

With stupidity at the reins, and corruption hitched to the drawbar, Mexico is digging its own grave.

The "freeze" on gasoline, diesel, all "comistible" prices is frozen until 1, January 2016. I have a feeling a bad feeling what I am going to find at the pump on New Years Day. The government rages over whether to tax groceries and medicines 16%.

So toll road charges are way down the list of priorities for Mexicans. They can always take the free road. America is filling with Mexicanos who have had enough of being threaded onto a cactus. Take the 80 mile ferryride with a vehicle from Sta Rosalia to Guaymas, and kiss three hundred dollars plus, good-bye. And yes, Diesel Comistible Maritime, costs considerably less than on highway diesel and has a nominal 900 PPM azufre.

We have a dual axle travel trailer and always seem to pay twice what a car pays. It sucks as we are so light and put no stress on the road surface, but it is consistent.

Rob
Puerto Morelos

I remember driving from Nogales to Mazatlan in 1990, in our first motorhome. It was scary.
The roads have improved unbelievably.
I'm not saying things are great everywhere, but overall the improvements are impressive.
Then there are California freeways-they suck.

Based on the last couple of responses to my last post I have some questions.

In the past few years we have seen huge improvements to many libre roads all over Mexico. I can site a few specific examples....

Almost all numbered roads going to and from San Miguel de Allende have been completely rebuilt - between SMA and Queretaro, Ceylaya, Dolores Hidalgo, and I think parts of the road to Guanajuato. By completely rebuilt I mean the old roads torn out and fill dirt and road base hauled in to not only widen these roads but to level them out. The roads are much wider than they were and dips/rises leveled. Much better surface. Full vehicle wide shoulders.

This is true in many other areas. Off hand I recall 15 west and south of Lake Chapala - and then the road from Lake Chapala up to Mazamitla. Serious work was being done on roads between Guadalajara and Manzanillo. From Chapala we have driven the roads up to Guanajuato through Yurecuaro, La Piedad, Penjamo, etc. where there are many changes and new perfericos with all new better wider smoother roads. We have seen in many areas of Mexico too numerous to remember or mention. I am sure others can add to this list - as well as to the list of roads that are still horrible.

Now there are areas where the libres are in better shape than the cuotas and in many cases it is shorter and easier to take the libre. So here is my question - who is paying for all of this and why are they now fixing the libres when they have private companies willing to build cuotas?

More and more new roads are being built all over Mexico - both cuotas and libres - a cuota example would be the new Arco Norte around Mexico City as well as the other new cuota running from the cuota between Mexico City and Queretaro to the NW of Mexico City making it very easy to get to places such as Teotihuacan. The new cut-off jog west of Culiacan. Not to mention the monumental engineering feat of building the new Devil's Backbone between Durango and Mazatlan. Now that's progress!

We are more than a little pleased to see all this road system progress. We are also very aware of so many roads that have not been repaired and are in sorry shape - many cuotas are not being kept up - and on many roads or sections of roads the tolls are ridiculous - an example there would be the road between Morelia and Salamanca where the toll is huge for the number of miles traveled.

But over all we see progress being made and we continue to wonder why this is happening and who is paying for it - how it is being paid for - where the money comes from - why now - we do know all the talk about Gov't corruption etc - but somehow Mexico is investing hugely in many new and improved roads. So does anyone know why and how this progress is being made? Let's try to put a positive spin on this instead of bringing up all the old corruption talk. We know new roads are being built as we have seen great progress in recent years - we have driven some of these roads many times. Somehow they have found money to make these improvements. Where does the money come from?

Let's stop complaining and recognize the fact that progress is being made and there has been huge improvement of the roads in many areas of Mexico. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Briansue, you hit the nail dead on the head, corruption, graft, kickbacks, mordida that is what happens with the taxes and profits from Pemex and the various toll roads, foreign bank's own some of the toll roads and they do not care what the condition of the road is coupled with the fact that there are no scales to control the weight limit on the trailers and cargo trucks, end result is broken pavement and lousy repairs, some of the repairs are worse than the potholes.

Complaining is useless since nothing is done so best is to accept the fact that toll roads are bad, libres are good since the government has to respond, the toll roads are private property and no politico is going to rock the boat, if you ever go to the museum of art in Mexico City, there is a painting of a man siting on a chair stepping on a bone, this is in Spanish el hueso, the title of the painting is El Politico, the bone represents the mordida.

Toll roads and Pemex pay a lot of mordidas to many Politicos and government officials, so not much will change in the near future, and trying to find solutions is truly an exercise in futility, best is to let them do what they do and enjoy the vida loca.

navegator

Tolls are high because the companies operating the toll roads pay huge mordida to politicians of every level. Some of the toll roads(Sonora) are in horrible condition as they do very little maintenance. Corruption is the downfall of the nation.

So is paying seventy dollars in pesos for what would be charged fifteen in the USA. Carriles llaves are for locals so ESTAFETA goods are charged full bore. High tolls raise the price of everything from breakfast eggs, to tires to medicine.

Mexican business aptitude
WHEN BUSINESS IS DOWN RAISE PRICES

It's the poor who pay through the snotbox for idiocy.

I am certainly not authority on much of anything so not claiming to know about this. What I have read is Mexico privatized these roads because that was the only way to pay for them - give investors the rights to build roads and charge people to use them. The Gov't does have some control but the private companies seem to charge the maximum allowed. The high cost means few people use these roads. If they charged less maybe more people would use the roads and they would get more revenue.

In the US the majority of roads and interstates do not have tolls. I have driven a great many roads in the US as a trucker and as an RVer so I do know where the tolls are. Most US roads are paid for by the fuel taxes - 18 cents a gallon to the feds and varying amounts to the states depending on which state you are in. The feds have not raised the tax on fuel in well over 20 years and now the roads are crumbling and the bridges are falling down. But for the most part we do not pay tolls - except on the east coast of course - and many of those tolls have gone away - they bog down traffic way too much causing massive traffic jambs. We can drive all over the US on interstate roads without paying one single toll if we should want to - but we don't since we mainly drive less traveled roads looking for hidden treasures - and finding them all along the way - just as we do in Mexico.

There are some privatized roads in the US I have heard - one somewhere south of Los Angeles I think but I do not know where any others are. I do not think private roads are the answer. I would have no problem with an increase on the fed fuel tax if they apply every penny of it to the highway system and nowhere else. 18 cents is not a lot when we are paying around $3 a gallon for fuel - only about 6%.

In Mexico by comparison to the US when we use the cuota roads we pay a great deal more per mile or per gallon than in the US. There is the argument that those who do not use the roads should not have to pay for them. But the fuel tax pays for all roads - not just the ones we happen to drive on - but it does pay for the roads we do use. Everyone benefits from a good road system as all of our goods travel these roads at one time or another. If you include various parts going to and from manufacturing facilities to produce finished goods there are many things that travel the roads quite a few times before getting to the consumer. The end result is we all pay for the roads one way or another - directly or indirectly - just as we all benefit from the roads either directly or indirectly.

I remember reading that there is a fuel tax in Mexico - I recall something like 16% but I could be wrong. I also heard that areas near the border were paying a different % so the fuel price at the pump was not the same as the rest of Mexico - I have heard that has changed. So if the Gov't owns the oil in Mexico - and controls the flow of fuel for the most part - and they also collect a tax on fuel - why can't they pay for the roads with those funds. I am sure the word corruption will now come into the conversation. Of course the answers can only be found in fact and not in speculation or rumor or assumption. Mordida. Perhaps we can also assume the funds the Gov't of Mexico collects from the sale of fuel - either the price of the fuel or whatever tax - has never been intended to go to the roads as the tax in the US is supposed to be destined.

In recent years we have noticed some really nice new roads being built all over Mexico - free roads - no tolls. Many new perifericos. Roads have been widened and straightened and just generally improved with new work being done all the time. We do have to endure big construction projects but then the next year we get to drive beautiful new roads. We have been very encouraged by all the nice new roads but we have no idea how they are being paid for.