Road Tolls

[Eug]

Surely if 407 wasn't a toll road, it would be congested as well.

Yes it would be more congested, having relieved the 401 of some of its traffic.

If we were to toll the 401, it might actually be possible to drive it much quicker. Imagine how much $ that would save!

The 401 goes right through the city. If you toll the 401, some of the traffic would move to the 407, but some of it would move into the city, potentially causing even worse gridlock on city roads.

 

[BMO]

Road tolls, but EVERYONE should pay for the roads, not just 905 ppl. And the tolls collected MUST go to a specific account that can only be used for transit, and cannot be used for anything else by any means.

If you're going to charge people, make sure you have tangible improvements to offer them, hence make sure the money is consistently going towards transit and actually improving peoples' commutes rather than having the road toll as just another ordinary tax that gets spread amongst all the services.

Drivers don't want to pay for Little Johnny's baseball games...BUT they DO want to pay to get more cars out of their way.

The government has to portray the toll as an investment into better commutes, rather than a tax or levy.

Make it an Electronic Toll Route than can be integrated with PRESTO. So effectively all transportation payments throughout the region would go through PRESTO, allowing tax incentives as well.

I would be affected, since I take the 401 to get to and from school in Waterloo. But during work in Toronto I use the subway.

 

[TOareaFan]

Road tolls, but EVERYONE should pay for the roads, not just 905 ppl. And the tolls collected MUST go to a specific account that can only be used for transit, and cannot be used for anything else by any means.

If you're going to charge people, make sure you have tangible improvements to offer them, hence make sure the money is consistently going towards transit and actually improving peoples' commutes rather than having the road toll as just another ordinary tax that gets spread amongst all the services.

Drivers don't want to pay for Little Johnny's baseball games...BUT they DO want to pay to get more cars out of their way.The government has to portray the toll as an investment into better commutes, rather than a tax or levy.

Also, I think, drivers that support tolling/additional-revenue-generation (as, to some extent, I do) will want to see that the tolls are being used to improve their specific drive or, better, drive alternatives. It is a tough sell, for example, to people stuck daily on the 410 if the tolling/gas tax money is being spent on, for example, expansion of the Yonge subway.

These are not easy issues but they are important if there is any hope of getting widespread public support.

 

[gweed123]

1% is going to be a hard sell. 0.75% might be doable though. For some reason 1% is real money and 0.5% rounds out (doesn't matter).

Good point. I just figured 1% was an easier number to do the math on for taxing that 0.5% or 0.75%.

But I do agree with you that if it's a fraction of a percent, the immediate psychological effect is that it doesn't matter.

 

[ssiguy2]

Hawc.........................you are absolutely right about not going into general revues where there is no telling where the money will go and this is where Vancouver's Translink excels.
Translink is responsible for regional roads not local roads that the individual cities pays or provincial highways/freewats which the province pays for. It is also responsivle for transit, commuter rail, and bike paths but that is all. In other words ALL the money goes to transportion and it doesn't have the authority to spend it on anything else. This results in the money going towards projects/infrastructure/operational costs that it was meant for and stops it going to arenas, playgrounds, or general coffers. It also results in a high level of coordination. An example of this is that new roads have bus-only lanes/ramps on them as opposed to having different authorities having control over such things which results in a less bureaucratic nightmare and a cost savings as projects are built with these considerations built into the original design.
The only way the GTA could do a similar program is through Metrolinx.

 

[reaperexpress]

I'm for toll roads, because I'm familiar with the 407. It makes my trips on GO transit and Brampton Zum 501A so much faster than they would be if the 407 weren't tolled. People make a big fuss about traffic "overflowing" onto local streets if highways are tolled, but from what I can tell, the vast majority of the reduction in traffic is due to people taking different modes and making fewer trips. If there weren't tolls on the 407, it would affect me in that I would probably drive more to the airport rather than taking the GO Airport Express.

I think highways should be tolled wherever there is a viable alternative to the car (although the rate can vary by location). Tolling roads in Northern Ontario wouldn't accomplish much other than making people angry. In contrast, tolling the 401 would make GO and VIA way more attractive, making it financially viable for them to operate frequent service, which in turn would attract even more people out of their cars - even if they weren't taking the highway before.

As others have said before, payment should be electronic like on the 407.

As a starter project I think we could toll the Express lanes of the 401. That way those who don't approve of toll roads get a vivid demonstration of how they work: the express lanes get faster but the collectors don't get slower. To maximize the benefit of this project, we should build ramps between the express lanes and GO terminals (such as Yorkdale, York Mills and STC) so that GO buses don't get stuck in traffic on the Collectors. It would be getting BRT service without the BRT price tag.

 

[spider]

The biggest impact we want to have is reduction of congestion during rush hour. Peak period tolls solves that. I don't think that tolling 24/7 is a good idea though.

How do you figure peak hour tolls on the 400 series highways are going to make congestion go away?
I drove from east end Toronto to Cambridge yesterday on the 401 to visit a friend who lives at least 3 kilometers from the nearest bus stop by his estimation. The alternative of patching together several transit trips and an hour of walking will not get me off the road anytime soon and I am probably typical of many motorists on the 401. Don't get me started about the trucks.

 

[nfitz]

How do you figure peak hour tolls on the 400 series highways are going to make congestion go away?
I drove from east end Toronto to Cambridge yesterday on the 401 to visit a friend who lives at least 3 kilometers from the nearest bus stop by his estimation. The alternative of patching together several transit trips and an hour of walking will not get me off the road anytime soon and I am probably typical of many motorists on the 401. Don't get me started about the trucks.

If you charged trucks $1/km in peak on the 401, wouldn't it push a lot of them to off-peak? Though many avoid peak already, because of the extra cost of driving then.

It's not the person who makes the occasional trip who would be shifited. It's the regulars, who think it's actually okay to drive from Oshawa to Mississauga every day.

 

[TOareaFan]

If you charged trucks $1/km in peak on the 401, wouldn't it push a lot of them to off-peak? Though many avoid peak already, because of the extra cost of driving then.

It's not the person who makes the occasional trip who would be shifited. It's the regulars, who think it's actually okay to drive from Oshawa to Mississauga every day.

I'd be (sincerely) interested in you completing the answer by telling spider what that person driving from Oshawa to Mississauga will do (to reduce the congestion) once you toll the road.

I do tend to disagree about how many people there are making the type of "swha to 'sauga" trip you describe. I think our roads are mostly congested with people who live in the w/nw and e/ne and n suburbs driving to work in more central locations.

Obviously both exist but I have a hard time believing that the "Cross GTA" commuter is in the majority.

 

[spider]

It's not the person who makes the occasional trip who would be shifited. It's the regulars, who think it's actually okay to drive from Oshawa to Mississauga every day.

Actually it is OK to drive from Oshawa to Mississauga everyday that's why all those extra lanes were built.

 

[nfitz]

I'd be (sincerely) interested in you completing the answer by telling spider what that person driving from Oshawa to Mississauga will do (to reduce the congestion) once you toll the road.

Move. Find a new job. Switch to GO. Most will still drive, but you only need a fraction to switch, to reduce congestion.

Actually it is OK to drive from Oshawa to Mississauga everyday that's why all those extra lanes were built.

Sure it's okay ... but it isn't in societies best interest, if a few people driving forever get a large amount of a scarce resource. The resource should be priced accordingly with an appropriate marginal rate.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

Move. Find a new job. Switch to GO. Most will still drive, but you only need a fraction to switch, to reduce congestion.

You describe moving and finding a new job as easy as 1-2-3 for everyone

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

If they want to toll the DVP, why not built the Don Mills LRT first?

 

[rbt]

You describe moving and finding a new job as easy as 1-2-3 for everyone

Doesn't need to be. It only needs to be easy for about 5% to 10% of current users.

 

[TOareaFan]

Move. Find a new job. Switch to GO. Most will still drive, but you only need a fraction to switch, to reduce congestion.

There are, likely, a plethora of reasons why some people don't live where they work. I just don't know that tolling is going to change those reasons. Certainly the ever increasing gas prices have not done that so I hold out little hope that tolling will. As for switching to GO.......since the Oshawa to Mississauga came up in discussion about the 401 I am gonna assume they are northern Mississauga residents who are making that commute (again, I wonder how many are?) so what is their GO option? A GO train in the morning to Union then a transfer to an eastbound lakeshore train...then what? (assuming they are not commuting directly to a workplace by the Oshawa GO train station). How long does that take? How much does that cost? Are the proposed 401 tolls (which, going back to my original point about who "we" is....is outside the control of the current City of Toronto toll discussion) going to be high enough to tilt this balance?

Then, once we toll those Mississaug to Oshawa commuters, is the money collected from them going to go into transit infrastructure that eases their commute? Or is going to extend the Yonge subway....or build a DRL.....neither of which will impact their lives at all....just transfer wealth from them to improve the lives of others.

Tolling is not an easy subject.