Comments on: Smackdown: Should Toronto have toll roads?

By: hagenaar

hagenaar — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:37:05 +0000

The funds that are used to maintain our streets and highways comes from taxes. If all the money had to come from registration and licencing fees, drivers would be shocked at the thousands they’s need to pay to support the system. If drivers (and I’m one of them) were made to be entirely responsible for the upkeep of roadways, a lot of them would turn in their keys. Tolls allow roads to be paid for by those who use and damage them the most.

By: pete

pete — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 18:06:45 +0000

If we get taxed at US levels, yes, let’s have toll roads. But given the amount of taxes we pay, this is rather turning into dictatorship than capitalism. I wonder who is really behind these articles.

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 18:05:16 +0000

@tj: You obviously don’t own a car or even have a drivers license. The taxes and fees we already pay for using our cars are supposed to cover these costs, so this is not a free-for -all as you think it is.

The problem is that the money being collected via the various taxes and fees go to general revenue and welfare cheques, not to road building and maintenance.

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 17:59:54 +0000

The question should be asked only to people who actually use the DVP or the Gardiner and to those who pay property taxes in Toronto proper and who own and drive a vehicle.

By: George Miron

George Miron — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 15:21:08 +0000

@TJ: Why stop there? Aren’t the sidewalks in the city “valuable resources” as well? Why not charge “user fees” for them as well?

By: 54321

54321 — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 03:12:33 +0000

Yes tolls… afterall, can’t get enough gov’t wasteful spending- the fiscally Conservative Bev Odas of the world need their $16 orange juice while on paid vacations to Paris. The teachers need more raises also LOL

By: nic

nic — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 02:24:06 +0000

We have one already and it’s so expensive that it would cost me nearly $130 to drive it one way in my tractor trailer. It’s the most expensive toll road in North America. I can run the entire NY Thruway for about 45 bucks with an EZPass. I believe in having toll roads for new roads and once it has been paid for get rid of the tolls, I don’t even mind paying tolls when they are reasonable but the 407 is a huge ripoff and I will never drive it.

By: Steve_YYZ

Steve_YYZ — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 01:10:12 +0000

The problem with “Toll Highways” is that they quickly become defacto private roads for the wealthy or those who use expence accounts. If rates were reasonable (say equal to a TTC token) for Mississauga into the city that would be acceptable and over time would pay towards the highway. But when rates are usurious such as the 407, where to drive from my Toronto home to visit friends in Burlington cost me more in tolls than in gas, that’s just wrong! If normal people can’t afford to use these super pay roads that is wrong. If you made the fare equal to a TTC ride, then people could choose which way to spend their money with no advantage or disadvantage to either way. Of course to attract more riders, all TTC would have to do is have good service.

By: tj

tj — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:39:20 +0000

You can and should drive on city streets if the User Fees (“tolls”) go ONLY on the Gardiner…

And THAT’s why we need tolls on ALL roads at all times… that would take some kind of special 21st century technology…. wait a second!!! THIS IS the 21st century! and we HAVE the technology.

Now all we need is the political will.

To be effective, User Fees need not be a net revenue source. To be effective, User Fees only need to cause road users to think twice about their choices. At the moment, there is no reason for a car driver to leave a car at home: the decision to use a road (at any given moment) does not involve any cost whatsoever — the roads are indeed a free-for-all (In fact, it would be a miracle if a car driver left a car in the garage to depreciate and choose to car pool instead just because traffic congestion is to grim out there….people need ancouragement and avoding a User fee is very effective encouragement).

It’s no wonder that to date we have no or very few road way user fees… afterall, that we didn’t have the technology to efficiently collect road way user fees until now– but the the 21st century has arrived….

Again, User Fees need not be a revenue source to be effective: In particular, we could simply refund all (or a significant fraction of) User Fees to all “tax payers” (equally). This would mean that the User Fees would be in place in the first place to cause road way users to think about car pooling and other options and further more, governments would have no (revenue) incentive to raise (or lower) the user fees. The fees could be adjusted specifically to control congestion and THAT’s what user fees should be for

The cost of collecting and refunding user fees would not be insignificant but it would cost less than endlessly building and repairing new roads. This endless building of a roadway free-for-all is a project that cannot possibly keep pace with demand so long as there are no User Fees on roadway use (by the way, user fees would apply to ALL road way users including private cars, taxis, buses, trucks).

The net effect of fully refunded user fees would be less congested roads and a little justice since the average road user would pay nothing (ie they would break even) while above average road users would net pay out and of course the below average road users would actually benefit… that is … we (ie drivers) would effectively be paying people to leave their cars at home and carpool or take the bus. I have often driven on a congested road way and thought, “If we all had to pay $10 for this, there would be far fewer people on this road (Sunday afternoon!) and I would be a lot happier in spite of paying my own way”… as it is, the nanny state pays for the road on my (our) behalf and me and everybody else turns out on a Sunday afternoon to use the roads to our respective hearts content and NOBODY is happy!! Classic government waste!!! I am willing to pay and I expect everybody else to pay likewise.

By: TJ

TJ — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:58:05 +0000

Let’s agree on one thing: Stop using the word “Toll”… these are user fees pure and simple … or at least that’s how these SHOULD be viewed.

The point is this: correctly applied, a User Fee helps to effectively manage scarce resources. Any capitalist knows that.

And roads are — by any capitalist’s standard — a valuable and at time — scarce — resource.

We must apply user fees to roads precisely BECAUSE they are congested. The notion that we must expand the Gardiner expressway before we demand User Fees has it wrong. In fact, we have a choice: we must EITHER expand the Gardiner OR ELSE put User Fees on it. Afterall, the moment we start charging $13 for the Gardner, then Bob in Doug who are neighbours in Oakville will very quickly figure out that it makese sense to carpool after all…. A little bit of that and we’ll very quickly find that we have excess capacity on the Gardner and — in spite of paying for it — Bob and Doug wil actually be happier… they ask the question, “Why did the government give away such a valuable resource at no charge to all comers for so very, very long… we are all much better off nowadays”

As long a the nanny-state bends to the demands of car loving voters, the nanny-state will continue to give away valuable road ways to all comers at all times and we’ll have more of the status quo: nobody is happy with it.

Get with the program! We spend a lot of money on our cars and we’ll all be a LOT better off if we just spend a little bit more. User Fees NOW!