Sydney Radio 2UE Toll Road Challenge Video

Toll road rip-off

What's faster? Driving to work on the toll roads, or taking the older free roads? We put it to the test on Sydney radio 2UE in a 20km commute from Sydney's south-west to the CBD on a Wednesday morning at 7.30am - notionally the worst time of the worst day for peak-hour traffic.

Watch what happened:

Our test of Sydney's notorious M5 Motorway and Eastern distributor toll roads versus free arterial roads was broadcast to thousands of Sydneysiders (many of whom were experiencing their own personal piece of gridlock at the time) on November 9, 2011.

Bankstown to the CBD with 2UE motoring expert John Cadogan (free roads) & 2UE Drive presenter Paul Murray (toll roads) crossing live to Jason Morrison's breakfast program throughout the morning.

Result? The free roads delivered me (John Cadogan) to work 23 minutes quicker than Paul Murray - an annualized saving of just over $2200 and 90 hours, one way. Tom Tom's guesstimate of the travel time for both trips was way off base. It predicted about half an hour for both trips. In reality mine was about 1 hour and 12 minutes, while Paul's trip (he called it a 'punish' appropriately enough, and likened the experience to a "bad marriage") took an astonishing 95 minutes...

Ouch.