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Roads: Gardiner Expressway

kEiThZ said:
Here's an idea that hasn't been raised...using tolls to offset other costs....ie Miller's plate tax. That's a way of making feel better about getting taxed.

At the end of the day Afransen is right....there has to be a direct cost to taking up road space if we want to end congestion.
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This is where I (admitedly) get lost.....is the goal of road tolls to end/reduce/limit congestion? or is it to raise money?

If it is the latter they will be successful. If it is the former it will have no impact on congestion unless, and until, there are viable alternatives to using the tolled roads....that is why I suggested the wait until the higher priority parts of the Big Move were implemented.


There's various ways to implement it. For example, how about a rush hour or day time only congestion charge.
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Again, this will limit the impact on tourists...sure but are the people driving into rush hour to get to their jobs going to not drive to work because there is a toll? Not likely....so, if it is a tax grab to raise money it will work....if it is seen as a congestion fighting measure....it will fail.
 
Glen said:
Then you shouldn't have employed it.
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I didn't, you did. You can play semantics as much as you want. At the end of the day, if you think that something you don't have to pay to use isn't free, good for you. I am going to to the free park, oops, I mean "prepaid" park. Then I am going to breathe my "prepaid" air, walk on the "prepaid" ground then enjoy the sun's "prepaid" rays.

UT mods, I am loving this "prepaid" forum on the library's "prepaid" internet.
 
Find me a way to toll sidewalks, parks or ambulances, proof the good is being abused because of it's disproportionately low (nonexistent) price, and I will vote for it. Until then, highways have convenient on/off ramps and are clearly being priced below what the market would otherwise tolerate.
 
Whoaccio said:
I didn't, you did. You can play semantics as much as you want. At the end of the day, if you think that something you don't have to pay to use isn't free, good for you. I am going to to the free park, oops, I mean "prepaid" park. Then I am going to breathe my "prepaid" air, walk on the "prepaid" ground then enjoy the sun's "prepaid" rays.

UT mods, I am loving this "prepaid" forum on the library's "prepaid" internet.
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Library operating costs come out of our taxes too. And Parks. :) Something about a public good.
 
afransen said:
Hydrogen is incorrect, highways are not a public good in the economic sense of the term.
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Who says I was limiting my remarks purely to economic definitions? You?

Why should there not be a congestion tax on crowded sidewalks during rush hour? Also, shouldn't cyclists pay for access to congested roads as well?
 
Hydrogen said:
Who says I was limiting my remarks purely to economic definitions? You?

Why should there not be a congestion tax on crowded sidewalks during rush hour? Also, shouldn't cyclists pay for access to congested roads as well?
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"Public good" is an economic term. The general rule of what constitute a public good is that it is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Using you're examples, a crowded sidewalk is a rivaled good (if i am taking up 3 square feet, i am rivaling someone else for that) but non excludable (try as hard as you want, there would be no way to enforce a congestion tax on a sidewalk). In practice, very few sidewalks are congested so it also tends to be non-rivalrous. That would qualify it as a public good. Ditto for general traffic roads. It is impossible to control access in an meaningful sense and, outside of a few situations, most of the time there is little competition for space.

"Public good" doesn't imply some kind of benevolent aim or societal benefits. It implies a certain set of criteria which prohibit an efficient market from existing.
 
Well, with the Yonge subway line down last night, perhaps the sidewalks should have been tolled. :rolleyes:

This is NewThink social engineering, nothing more, nothing less. Cars=bad; transit=good. All municipal energies are directed at getting cars - any cars, off the roads, rather than admitting there has been a general failure to keep up with demand of all forms of transportation in this city while socialist causes have been priortized over the past 30 years instead.

Don't confound city hall that only 20% of our greenhouse gases come from autos (ever sit behind an idling bus?), don't confound them with the fact that 1/6 of our jobs rely directly or indirectly to the automobile, don't confound them with the fact that people do not want to be sandwiched into a tiny tin can to commute every day, but rather let them come up with some pathetic mantra about the evils of auto ownership and slay that evil dragon on the alter of saving the polar bears.

Besides, who out there actually trusts the government to implement tolls only during peak ours and to directly apply that money to improving local transportation? Or does anyone out there not remember the sales pitch for the 407, which the NDP started, BTW.
 
afransen said:
Bingo. Someone gets it...
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Hardly. The two of you can go on about the marginal cost all you want but in the end it is nothing more than a disguised attempt to appropriate the cost solely on users while ignoring that the benefit of highways is wide spread. I would have a much easier time believing that both of you and Whoaccio were not arguing based on anti-car rhetoric if you both applied the same logic towards public transit. Or do you support the idea that those whom do not use the TTC should not have to pay for it (capital and operating subsidies)?

If you are only referring to the marginal cost related to operating and maintenance cost, as opposed to the capital construction cost, you may have a point. Though the cost per/km would be so low that the overhead of recouping that would be more than the actual expense.



Hydrogen is incorrect, highways are not a public good in the economic sense of the term. A public good is something where "consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others". This definition does not apply when demand for highway space outstrips supply, which is the case during peak-load times. Maybe you could argue that highways are public goods some of the time in some places, but you certainly can't when the road is at capacity.
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So when there is line ups for the TTC it no longer is a public good because someone 's consumption' displaces the supply for another?
 
Not on the Wellesley line, at least. The buses are nearly empty and, yes, they are waiting in single file behind the cars gridlocked at each intersection.

But - hey, let's continue building those pretty towers, shall we?
 
Glen said:
So when there is line ups for the TTC it no longer is a public good because someone 's consumption' displaces the supply for another?
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The TTC isn't a public good. I've never said it was... Elsewhere, I've also argued the TTC should be privatized. So I don't know what you are going about.
 
Glen said:
Hardly. The two of you can go on about the marginal cost all you want but in the end it is nothing more than a disguised attempt to appropriate the cost solely on users while ignoring that the benefit of highways is wide spread.
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Most things have societal benefits, be they public, private or circus in nature. The Maple Leafs, for instance, bring in tourists and customers downtown. There is the so called "societal benefit." Should the City of Toronto buy all of tickets and provide them for free ("prepaid", once again)? Think about the widespread benefits! It would obviously boost demand for the free, oops, "prepaid" tickets, and obviously increase demand and draw people into the core.

Using you're logic, we could nationalize virtually the entire economy (I hear the economy's benefits are "wide spread" as well). The 407 provides just as much, or more, societal benefit as any other highway in decreased congestion and improved travel times. The difference? The main beneficiaries of the service are it's primary supporters. It is hardly "disguised" either, MacGyver, it is pretty explicit that we are arguing the cost of a premium service should be carried by it's users, not society at large. You know, like most other goods. Great detective work.
 
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