Electrify
Senior Member
Haven't read the study or any of the links, but I did hear on CBC this morning that in Toronto the money drivers give to the government exceeds 100% of the cost the government invests in road infrastructure.
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Are roads heavily subsidized
- Thread starter TOareaFan
- Start date
Haven't read the study or any of the links, but I did hear on CBC this morning that in Toronto the money drivers give to the government exceeds 100% of the cost the government invests in road infrastructure.
nfitz
Superstar
Is there a link to this CAA study somewhere?
TOareaFan
Superstar
Memph
Active Member
Agreed, and arterials are probably going to be another really big chunk of the cost in a place like the GTA. It seems like in the GTA, the only thing that's left is residential streets and a few roads in the rural parts of the GTA? Residential streets don't get nearly as much wear.
TOareaFan
Superstar
I only got a chance to scan the report at lunch but it really appeared that all roads of all types were included in their cost estimates.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Indeed, the reaction here was entirely predictable. First attack the source. Then discredit the sponsor. Finally read the Cole's Notes of the report and then reject its findings entirely.
TOareaFan
Superstar
What I would hope would come from a report of this type/subject is a more rational, educated discussion about sources of capital to improve the entire transportation network for the region. For too long it has been a discussion based on assumptions....the pro transit people defending the subsidies needed for transit and transit expansion by saying (paraphrase) "they are lower than the subsidies on roads and cars" and the car drivers saying "no their not".
Clearly there are estimates and assumptions in this report but, on first scan, it appears to be a decent effort at an adult conversation about the level of subsidy there is, or isn't, in the road network.....it is also noted that the next stage of this report is a discussion about policy implications and how this might impact any plans to implement new/changed/additional road pricing.
As a transit friendly guy who spends most of his commuting in cars, I think this is a healthy discussion. It would be my opinion that, neither, road nor transit users should be paying the "full freight" for their mode of transportation....both offer other societal benefits that is more appropriately taken from general taxation. I would also go so far as to say I think the level of subsidy on transit (on a percentage basis) should be higher than the level of subsidy on the road network. That said, you can't begin to understand what those should/could move to until you have some reasonable estimation of where they are at now.
BurlOak
Senior Member
It seems like "car" is being used to describe the users of the highway and road network. I am not sure if the study considered the other users of the road network which benefits society as a whole - and who actually do more physicial harm to the infrastructure than cars do. These include comercial truck, garbage trucks, emergency vehicles, etc., etc.
A one or 2 tonne car creates next to no wear and tear compared to 50 tonne or more trucks with 10 tonne axles.
Electrify
Senior Member
One thing which always kind of pissed me off is that those in Northern Ontario only pay half the annual fee to register their cars compared to Southern Ontario. Up until Ford came into power, it was several times more expensive in Toronto. Do other juristictions in Canada and North America charge different rates to register your vehicle depending on where you own or rent property?
Also how come only those in urban locations have to do the Drive Clean test?
Worst of all, a Bay St banker can simply register his vehicles to his cottage near Sudbury, and skip the more expensive registration fee and Drive Clean tests.
Also how come only those in urban locations have to do the Drive Clean test?
Worst of all, a Bay St banker can simply register his vehicles to his cottage near Sudbury, and skip the more expensive registration fee and Drive Clean tests.
RC8
Senior Member
Anyone that understands the research methodology used in the report can tell you it's pretty ridiculous to draw the conclusions published in the media. It basically says that:
"Drivers pay a significant share of the money that would be required to pay for the roads they use, to the federal and provincial governments."
In other words, the roads that they don't use but they have access to do not count. It's like saying that my transit costs involve sending two streetcars a day up and down Spadina. In reality in order for this service to be useful to me, it needs to be running constantly, and road maintenance and construction need to go far beyond what each individual actually uses on average in order to be useful. Much as empty buses - often a necessity - don't pay for themselves, neither do empty streets. When they don't include the costs of cars, and use real expenses in their analysis of Ontario, you can see that driving is still heavily subsidised.
They do fix this for the GTHA calculations (relying on the only reasonable approach to calculate infrastructure costs), but these calculations fall short of any legitimacy as externalities are not included. Although the article pays lip service to a few of these externalities, it fails to include any of them in their analysis and calculations - such as deaths, air pollution in urban areas, congestion, the extremely inefficient use of public space, etc. It's like calculating the costs of smoking without accounting for any healthcare considerations. It therefore fails to account for the undeniable fact that provincial gas taxes should actually be spent in areas other than infrastructure. In other words, the 'costs' in the article don't reflect real costs in any way.
Then there's the question of who these drivers are paying this money to. Is it the municipal governments? Responsible for actually fixing the majority of roads - and pretty much all roads shared with other modes of transport? Nope. Most of what drivers pay goes elsewhere... which means that, at the municipal level, drivers remain highly subsidised compared to other forms of transportation.
Including all costs of driving in the section of the article that looks at total costs was a pretty silly thing to do in the context of their arguments. Concluding that most externalities should be solved through the use of general revenue since people spend so much in car-related stuff is completely absurd and illogical. They can't go there without even contemplating the social consequences of having transportation costs of $10,000 per household per year, for example, and of spreading out cities to serve the car. The paper does not examine or even entertain the possibility that spending money from drivers (both in special taxes and general revenues) to subsidise public transportation might actually be making the life of drivers much easier than if the money was spent in some generic road infrastructure improvement. It also does not engage in more complex but undeniable issues such as the fact that a lot of the transit service in our cities is necessary to make up for the deficiencies of cities planned for the car: I had to take 2 buses to get to a grocery store when I lived in Mississauga, for example, but if the city had not been designed for cars I could have walked and saved us all some money.
All in all the paper does not address the real issues associated with driving in urban areas like Toronto. It merely shows that drivers in the GTA are paying money to the federal government that they never see again, and that they are helping the province pay for heavy-duty transport costs more than other user sub-groups. It does not change the reality that car-infrastructure is heavily subsidised at both the provincial and municipal level, or that planning for cars is often the least efficient form of moving people from a fiscal, social, and spatial perspective.
"Drivers pay a significant share of the money that would be required to pay for the roads they use, to the federal and provincial governments."
In other words, the roads that they don't use but they have access to do not count. It's like saying that my transit costs involve sending two streetcars a day up and down Spadina. In reality in order for this service to be useful to me, it needs to be running constantly, and road maintenance and construction need to go far beyond what each individual actually uses on average in order to be useful. Much as empty buses - often a necessity - don't pay for themselves, neither do empty streets. When they don't include the costs of cars, and use real expenses in their analysis of Ontario, you can see that driving is still heavily subsidised.
They do fix this for the GTHA calculations (relying on the only reasonable approach to calculate infrastructure costs), but these calculations fall short of any legitimacy as externalities are not included. Although the article pays lip service to a few of these externalities, it fails to include any of them in their analysis and calculations - such as deaths, air pollution in urban areas, congestion, the extremely inefficient use of public space, etc. It's like calculating the costs of smoking without accounting for any healthcare considerations. It therefore fails to account for the undeniable fact that provincial gas taxes should actually be spent in areas other than infrastructure. In other words, the 'costs' in the article don't reflect real costs in any way.
Then there's the question of who these drivers are paying this money to. Is it the municipal governments? Responsible for actually fixing the majority of roads - and pretty much all roads shared with other modes of transport? Nope. Most of what drivers pay goes elsewhere... which means that, at the municipal level, drivers remain highly subsidised compared to other forms of transportation.
Including all costs of driving in the section of the article that looks at total costs was a pretty silly thing to do in the context of their arguments. Concluding that most externalities should be solved through the use of general revenue since people spend so much in car-related stuff is completely absurd and illogical. They can't go there without even contemplating the social consequences of having transportation costs of $10,000 per household per year, for example, and of spreading out cities to serve the car. The paper does not examine or even entertain the possibility that spending money from drivers (both in special taxes and general revenues) to subsidise public transportation might actually be making the life of drivers much easier than if the money was spent in some generic road infrastructure improvement. It also does not engage in more complex but undeniable issues such as the fact that a lot of the transit service in our cities is necessary to make up for the deficiencies of cities planned for the car: I had to take 2 buses to get to a grocery store when I lived in Mississauga, for example, but if the city had not been designed for cars I could have walked and saved us all some money.
All in all the paper does not address the real issues associated with driving in urban areas like Toronto. It merely shows that drivers in the GTA are paying money to the federal government that they never see again, and that they are helping the province pay for heavy-duty transport costs more than other user sub-groups. It does not change the reality that car-infrastructure is heavily subsidised at both the provincial and municipal level, or that planning for cars is often the least efficient form of moving people from a fiscal, social, and spatial perspective.
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nfitz
Superstar
Is that the reaction? Personally I haven't read the report yet, so I can't comment ...
... oh wait, I guess that means your wrong ...
TOareaFan
Superstar
The study dealt with that by allocating a portion of the costs to non-personal vehicles. It then compared the revenue raised from personal vehicles to the portion of the costs not allocated to the commercial vehicles.
RC8
Senior Member
Truth is, however, that to move all non-personal vehicles in the GTHA we would actually never need anything larger than a 4-lane road. The vast majority of roadspace is intended to alleviate congestion for LDVs, and the study does not take this into consideration. Results are thus schewed in the opposite direction to what BurlOak suggests.
spider
Senior Member
Nice try.
What in the world does the price I paid for my car have to do with it? I could own a $100 beater or a $400,000 Bentley and place the same strain on the roads. In fact I could own both or 6 cars but since I can only drive one at a time, the purchase price(s) is irrelevant to the survey.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
I'm somewhere in between the 2 camps.
I think that the money Torontonians pay in road-related taxes and fees is larger than the amount that higher governments spend to build and maintain existing roadways.
However, I think that those costs reflect:
1. The fact that higher governments spend much less than they should to maintain the existing roadways (our roads are in terrible shape),
2. The fact that our roads are running at the most strained levels of service.
3. That other costs of road use (EMS, health-related air pollution costs, etc., the opportunity cost of households spending that money on cars rather than on other aspects of life, like education or vacations or shopping for other consumer goods) are completely externalized.
Ignoring #3, you can't say that #1 is true across the board. There are cities that spend a lot more money to keep their roads in good shape, but that also means that they're likely much more subsidized. This is not necessarily a bad thing. This is analogous to people who think that the TTC is a great system because it has a high farebox recovery, but it would arguably be a better service that provided value for people if they offered more transit at a greater rate of subsidy. Re: #2, almost every city in Canada also has roads running at less congested levels, so those roads are invariably subsidized more than they would be in Toronto. When I think about it, Canada must have some of the most subsidized roads in the world, because there's no economic reason to justify building a $150million road bridge across the Mackenzie river in the NWT or to blast a highway out of the Canadian shield to serve a remote community.
I don't support more road construction, but I do support spending more money to make our existing roads better and safer. I also think that this should be part of the discussion on new taxes and levies to fund transit. It's hard to get a new transit tax passed without some buy-in from the majority of people who drive. The funding package that will allow LA to have the biggest transit expansion of any city in North America was passed because it also threw a few bones for car drivers.
I think that the money Torontonians pay in road-related taxes and fees is larger than the amount that higher governments spend to build and maintain existing roadways.
However, I think that those costs reflect:
1. The fact that higher governments spend much less than they should to maintain the existing roadways (our roads are in terrible shape),
2. The fact that our roads are running at the most strained levels of service.
3. That other costs of road use (EMS, health-related air pollution costs, etc., the opportunity cost of households spending that money on cars rather than on other aspects of life, like education or vacations or shopping for other consumer goods) are completely externalized.
Ignoring #3, you can't say that #1 is true across the board. There are cities that spend a lot more money to keep their roads in good shape, but that also means that they're likely much more subsidized. This is not necessarily a bad thing. This is analogous to people who think that the TTC is a great system because it has a high farebox recovery, but it would arguably be a better service that provided value for people if they offered more transit at a greater rate of subsidy. Re: #2, almost every city in Canada also has roads running at less congested levels, so those roads are invariably subsidized more than they would be in Toronto. When I think about it, Canada must have some of the most subsidized roads in the world, because there's no economic reason to justify building a $150million road bridge across the Mackenzie river in the NWT or to blast a highway out of the Canadian shield to serve a remote community.
I don't support more road construction, but I do support spending more money to make our existing roads better and safer. I also think that this should be part of the discussion on new taxes and levies to fund transit. It's hard to get a new transit tax passed without some buy-in from the majority of people who drive. The funding package that will allow LA to have the biggest transit expansion of any city in North America was passed because it also threw a few bones for car drivers.
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