The following was extracted from the Crikey website.......The...

The following was extracted from the Crikey website.......The joke about the cross-eyed tunnel is that it seems everyone loses. Well, not quite everyone. It looks like Macquarie Bank, the MTAA super fund and their fellow investors in the Eastern Distributor are winners.

Motorists, the government and the investors in the Cross City are all losers, but it looks like the changes for this disaster are forcing more people to use the Eastern Distributor at $4.50 a pop heading north. If time wasn't crucial out of peak hours, there used to be a reasonable alternative route to the Eastern Distributor from the airport to the harbour bridge. Road closures for the Cross City have wiped them out, forcing would-be rat-runners well out of their way up onto the permanently clogged Macquarie Street. Even such notorious tight-ar*es as me are being forced to give Macquarie Infrastructure Group money.

The latest traffic figures for MIG suggest I'm not alone. January traffic for the Eastern Distributor was up 5.6 per cent on the previous corresponding month. Most tellingly, weekend and public holiday traffic – when time would appear least crucial - was up 6 per cent.

That increase is despite the toll being boosted to $4.50, meaning average daily revenue is up a whopping 18 per cent. With normal market forces, you might expect a higher cost to weaken supply.

While so much focus is on the Cross City Tunnel, it should not be forgotten what a gold mine Bob Carr's government created for the Eastern Distributor owners. That toll increases by the greater of the CPI, average weekly earnings or 1 per cent per quarter – the best of any world. Yes, it's much better to be in Macquarie Bank than on Macquarie Street.