News   Apr 26, 2024
Sustainability Month: ReHousing — A Multiplex How-To Guide Explores What’s Possible in the Yellowbelt
 2.1K     4 
News   Apr 26, 2024
Mattamy's Soleil and Mile & Creek Condos in Milton’s Flourishing Landscape
 479     0 
News   Apr 26, 2024
Galleria on the Park Soon to Welcome First Residents of Masterplanned Community
 1.1K     1 

Congestion taxes?

An interesting read, but the report appears to throw everything into one pot: transit, highways, gridlock, maintenance, new construction and other such things. One has to assume that the primary reason for doing so is that the report has been issued by an alliance of construction organizations who clearly sees the value of maintaining and building on what already exists. That's all fine, but it tends to read like a recipe to build our way out of our problems rather than to identify and fund specific solutions in their order of importance.

Building more improperly funded transit will only result in a bigger system with the same systemic funding problems.
 
RedRocket191 said:
But, as I've said before, we must give everyone the choice to choose transit and enact measures to discourage people from driving in congested areas. We cannot ram transit down people's throats - only persuade them to take the better way.
Click to expand...

Hard to choose public transit when it's not available. Would a congestion tax be fair to those who live in areas where public transit is poor?
 
Just like it's unfair to charge people for water when they don't live next to a river, charge people for vegetables if they don't have them growing in their backyard, etc. etc.

Driving isn't a god-given right. It consumes a scarce resource.
 
afransen said:
Just like it's unfair to charge people for water when they don't live next to a river, charge people for vegetables if they don't have them growing in their backyard, etc. etc.

Driving isn't a god-given right. It consumes a scarce resource.
Click to expand...

And drivers pay for it through taxes and through other costs associated with owning a car. It's hardly a free-for-all. Driving might not be a right, but it isn't a crime either.

As for resource consumption - that's a separate issue. Fighting for stricter emissions controls, or renewable energy technology, is a different issue then drivers and public transit. Calling for the ban of cars, when you really want a ban on pollution, seems misguided.
 
We're not banning cars here. We're rationing the use of highways during peak hours.

Are you also opposed to variable pricing for electricity?
 
I'm pretty heavily in favor of gas taxes to fund road repairs and transit (hey, it's paying people not to be sitting in a car in front of you), but the tax per kilometer seems steep. I still think in miles per gallon, so I may have done the math wrong, but isn't a .07 per kilometer fee awfully high? It seems to work out to something like 90 cents per liter for the average car. While I admit it's a pretty blunt tool, a reasonable gas tax seems a lot easier and cheaper to implement than a per-kilometer charge.
 
A benefit of taxing gas rather than distance travelled is also that it encourages people to get more fuel-efficient vehicles; an SUV owner is paying more per kilometre than a person driving a hybrid, which makes sense to me.
 
afransen said:
We're not banning cars here. We're rationing the use of highways during peak hours.

Are you also opposed to variable pricing for electricity?
Click to expand...

What you seem to keep missing is that we're already paying for the use of highways, regardless of peak hours or not. If we want to switch to a pay-per-use system, than we should take off the blanket taxes applied to fuel consumption. We shouldn't be taxing people twice for the same thing!
 
Improved vehicle fuel efficiency, traffic congestion and road maintenance are different issues. They are not going to be addressed by one solution. More fuel efficient vehicles will not reduce congestion.


From another perspective, congestion is also a product of the set hours of the standard work day. Congestion and congestion taxes would be built upon a structural imposition that many people can't escape from. Massive investments in new highways and transit is, to a considerable degree, founded on this fixed timing as well.
 
TKTKTK said:
What you seem to keep missing is that we're already paying for the use of highways, regardless of peak hours or not. If we want to switch to a pay-per-use system, than we should take off the blanket taxes applied to fuel consumption. We shouldn't be taxing people twice for the same thing!
Click to expand...
So why do transit users pay a supplementary fare when they have already paid for the system out of the government's general tax revenue?
 
Darkstar416 said:
So why do transit users pay a supplementary fare when they have already paid for the system out of the government's general tax revenue?
Click to expand...

I pay those same taxes towards the TTC, but are you also buying fuel for the bus? No? Hmm.

This isn't an issue of having our cake and eating it too. Enough money to fund these projects is already being extracted from the driving population. If the issue is money, it's already there. If the issue is congestion, build more and better transit options with the funds.

You're all Vaughaning on drivers like they're the entertainment district. :D
 
I tell you the only way your going to get suburbanites on transit is...

1. They can still drive around...

2. Easy access to transit (such as parking by transit stops)
 
lordmandeep said:
I tell you the only way your going to get suburbanites on transit is...

1. They can still drive around...

2. Easy access to transit (such as parking by transit stops)
Click to expand...

We need more bus routes that serve neighborhoods. It may only be a few hundred metres to the nearest arterial road, but the walk is complicated by the curves of the street. We need to get buses onto local roads to offer as close to door-to-door service as possible.
 
Transport Canada is currently doing a large research project on Full Cost Analysis for a variety of transport modes

http://www.tc.gc.ca/pol/en/aca/fci/menu.htm

http://www.tc.gc.ca/pol/en/Report/FullCostInvestigation/Road/tp14491/tp14491.pdf

Initial exploration of roads costs vs expenses shows that in Canada as a whole (all jurisdictions), roads revenues make up 67-91% of costs.... (of a total of 17-26 billion dollars in 2000) - note: these are low/high estimates

Municipalities in Ontario have between 22-30% of road costs covered by revenues .... though they spend double the money that the province is spending. (and you thought that transit was 'subsidized transportation')

Federal government is raking it in...especially in Ontario
(nb, iirc this is pre-gas tax transfers)
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top