Toll roads into Toronto... Urban... Suburban... Rural... sprawl

If you think of tolls as a tax, tolls are a progressive tax because they are levied against the people using the roads, they are a tax on a polluting technology, and also a tax on relatively more affluent people who can afford vehicles. These taxes can then be used to pay for badly-needed regional transit. We need more trains!!!

Ironic seeing John Tory advocating for tolls when he almost defeated David Miller by stoking outrage against Miller's toll road proposal, forcing then-candidate Miller to promise he won't impose tolls. If it weren't for John Tory, we might have had tolls ten years ago, and be that much farther down the road towards paying for MOAR TRAINS. (And yes, I know Rob Ford would have revoked the tolls, had Miller enacted them.)

Better late than never, John Tory.

I don't know..It costs me over $800 a year to travel within the city. It costs a few hundred more if you're travelling from the suburbs and in the city.

I know that out this way they are building a new bridge connect the suburbs to the city. Why not pay for it with tolls?

Sineed wrote:

If you think of tolls as a tax, tolls are a progressive tax because they are levied against the people using the roads, they are a tax on a polluting technology, and also a tax on relatively more affluent people who can afford vehicles. These taxes can then be used to pay for badly-needed regional transit. We need more trains!!!

Thing is, there's already a tax levied against people who use the roads in polluting vehicles, and it's one that requires no new collection infrastructure, targets the highest-polluting vehicles the most, and doesn't push traffic off busy roads to smaller arteries that can't handle the extra load: the gas tax. Raise that and earmark it for transit, by all means, but tolling specific arteries runs into the same problems I discussed over in the Champlain bridge thread -- not to mention that with real estate prices being what they are in major cities, Canada is gradually moving from the American "wealthy suburbs" model to the European "wealthy cities, poor suburbs" model.

Which isn't to say that there aren't interesting things that can be done with tolls -- I like the "high-occupancy toll lanes" model some American states have used, and some implementations of the congestion charge. Certainly Canada needs massive investment in transit. I'm just not sure tolling the DVP is the way to go.

push traffic off busy roads to smaller arteries that can't handle the extra load

Good point cco. This will happen, and it will disrupt parts of Downtown Toronto and the inner suburbs.

Just ask anyone who lives in New Westminster BC. Many suburban commuters avoid the new tolled Port Mann bridge and drive over the rickety ancient Pattullo. This leads to traffic gridlock in the New West urban core, making life difficult for locals, including transit users and first responders, for several hours every weekday. When the same thing happens in Toronto, Tory will take the blame and any type of tolling will be more unpopular.

I'm all for making it more expensive to drive in the city and more convenient to take transit, but this is not the way.

i see tolls as unfair.  the cost is prohibitive the poorer you are, and we're already giving enough through taxes.

it's also punishing you depending on where you live.  if you are in a place which necessitates taking a toll road several times a day vs someone who lives in an area with no/less toll roads, all of a sudden you're getting screwed...

how about governments stop giving our money away and wasting it and actually invest in the maintenance of infrastructure.

That is after all, supposed to be their job

I believe we should have more tolls for all means of transport; people need to invest/be taxed more on the infrastructure they use.

This would force more local manufacturing across the country.

The 519 area coded needs to place a toll against the 905 and Toronto. Close everything off south of Hwy 9.

Timebandit wrote:

Unless I have a production team and a lot of gear (in which case I'd consider a toll just part of the deal) I don't drive to and from the airport when I'm in Toronto.

Does your company pay the toll or it is someone else that does?

I was just wondering who claims the business expense for the toll roads in this case.

More public infrastructure needs to be built in the larger cities, by these urban areas need to be more self efficient with more localized industry.

User fees and tolls and consumption taxes are regressive forms of raising revenue. As far as environmental justice goes, I doubt it will lessen cars on these highways.  They'll still be packed.  It'll just be another expense as government moves from progressive taxation to these flat across the board revenue streams.

Quote:

User fees and tolls and consumption taxes are regressive forms of raising revenue. As far as environmental justice goes, I doubt it will lessen cars on these highways.  They'll still be packed.

That's a good point.  It's hard to argue that a road toll is an egregious financial burden on someone who's already happy to pay more to commute in their private vehicle.  If a few bucks was that important, drivers would take the TTC or the GO Train.  It's simply not cheaper to buy, fuel, insure, maintain and park a car than it is to take transit.

That said, I'm not averse to toll roads (with, I suppose, the possible exception of a $50 toll on the only road into or out of town).  As noted, the drivers on toll roads (or any roads) are the primary beneficiary of those roads, so it's hardly unfair that they should shoulder a slightly larger burden than everyone else.  The only question, I suppose, is why "this" road and not "that" road (or even ALL roads)?

It's nice to see the Milennials become less car-dependent than previous generations:

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/07/the-clearest-explanation-yet-for-...

Speaking as someone who grew-up in the 80s suburbia, I faced unrelenting peer pressure to get a driver's licence when I turned 16. I guess things are different now.