Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[Dichotomy]

The marginal cost is zero. You can use it once and "pay" just as much as someone who has used it 400+ times. That is to say, nothing.

Who else other than motorists pay gas taxes? I doubt a lawnmower user would pay much in the way of gas taxes in a year. I guesstimate I pay about $1,000 in gas tax per year. Does a cyclist pay gas taxes? Someone using the TTC indirectly pays some gas taxes, if they ride surface routes. The trucking industry also pays a lot of gas taxes.

In a very real way, this is user-pay. Why slap tolls on top of this? All this means is that the rich can afford to drive, everyone else gets to ride in a tiny tin can to work every day.

Reduce our gasoline taxes to American levels and I will gladly support tolling the Gardiner.

 

[Whoaccio]

Who else other than motorists pay gas taxes? I doubt a lawnmower user would pay much in the way of gas taxes in a year. I guesstimate I pay about $1,000 in gas tax per year. Does a cyclist pay gas taxes? Someone using the TTC indirectly pays some gas taxes, if they ride surface routes. The trucking industry also pays a lot of gas taxes.

Gas taxes don't factor the specific demand for specific roads, and hence don't relate to the cost of congestion. Someone buying a liter of gas in Kenora doesn't have much to do with congestion on the Gardiner, DVP or anywhere else. Gas taxes address, to some extent, the demand for gas. The demand for road space is something quite different entirely. You sort of alluded to this by pointing out that cyclists don't pay gas taxes and in theory neither would electric vehicles. I am sure you can see the difference.

In theory gas could be used for things which don't even have any relation to roads, like a lawn mower or portable generator. Gas could be 50$/l, it wouldn't directly effect the relative congestion of one road over another.

 

[TKTKTK]

The marginal cost is zero. Drive on the Gardiner once. How much does it cost you? Drive on the Gardiner again, how much does it cost you? Drive on the Gardiner another 100 times, notice any change in price?

And yes, the marginal cost of health care as the end use sees it is zero. At least for the parts of it covered under OHIP. That is why we have absurd waiting lists for procedures like a hip replacement. Gridlock, waiting lines, it is all the same thing.

Actually, if there was heavier than usual use on the Gardiner (from everyone driving on it an extra 100 times) we'd all see it costing us more - in the form of raised taxes, or taxes allocated to extra road repairs

The only people who think it's free are those that either don't pay taxes (and who would that be?) or people who don't understand the role of taxation.

 

[Whoaccio]

Actually, if there was heavier than usual use on the Gardiner (from everyone driving on it an extra 100 times) we'd all see it costing us more - in the form of raised taxes, or taxes allocated to extra road repairs

That is called socialism. YOU don't bear the costs for driving profusely, WE do. There were lineups for bread in the USSR, we have lineups for roads.

 

[TKTKTK]

That is called socialism. YOU don't bear the costs for driving profusely, WE do. There were lineups for bread in the USSR, we have lineups for roads.

And highways have social benefits, which is why we all pay for them. You might not directly use highways, but you directly benefit from them. Unless you've been having special deliveries made by helicopter.

You pay for a base level of service. Those who use the service more are paying more in taxes as a direct result of their auto use. In fact, they're double-taxed on gas taxes (as you ACTUALLY pay sales tax on top of the gas tax). Highways aren't free. Nothing is.

 

[Whoaccio]

And highways have social benefits, which is why we all pay for them. You might not directly use highways, but you directly benefit from them. Unless you've been having special deliveries made by helicopter.

You pay for a base level of service. Those who use the service more are paying more in taxes as a direct result of their auto use. In fact, they're double-taxed on gas taxes (as you ACTUALLY pay sales tax on top of the gas tax). Highways aren't free. Nothing is.

Highways are free to use. Go to a 401 off ramp, park, and just keep reversing and driving forward onto it. Other than a driving infraction ticket, you don't pay anything. Nothing. Zilch. Nadda. You could enter the highway a million times, you don't pay anything. That is the definition of free. You might have theoretically payed 1/12,000,000 of it's upkeep costs, but you don't pay anything to actually use it. Quite honestly, I don't care. But there will always be congestion if a good is priced for free. You can spout "social good" crap as much as you want, we have gridlock because of it. If we privatized roads, like the 407 though hopefully we could do a better job of not getting fleeced, gridlock would be significantly reduced. People would have to account for their own personal choices as opposed to expecting society to foot the bill.

Why not provide "free" food to everyone? There is "social-good" o plenty there.

 

[Glen]

Highways are free to use. Go to a 401 off ramp, park, and just keep reversing and driving forward onto it. Other than a driving infraction ticket, you don't pay anything. Nothing. Zilch. Nadda. You could enter the highway a million times, you don't pay anything. That is the definition of free. You might have theoretically payed 1/12,000,000 of it's upkeep costs, but you don't pay anything to actually use it. Quite honestly, I don't care. But there will always be congestion if a good is priced for free. You can spout "social good" crap as much as you want, we have gridlock because of it. If we privatized roads, like the 407 though hopefully we could do a better job of not getting fleeced, gridlock would be significantly reduced. People would have to account for their own personal choices as opposed to expecting society to foot the bill.

Why not provide "free" food to everyone? There is "social-good" o plenty there.

Lets try this........

Shirts are free to use. Go to your closet and just keep putting one on and off. Other than a getting tired, you don't pay anything. Nothing. Zilch. Nadda. You could put it on a million times, you don't pay anything. That is the definition of free. You might have theoretically payed 1/12,000,000 of it's upkeep costs, but you don't pay anything to actually use it. Quite honestly, I don't care. But there will always be congested closets if shirts are priced for free. You can spout "social good" crap as much as you want, we have over sized closets because of it. If we publicised closets, we could do a better job of not getting fleeced, congested closets would be significantly reduced. People would have to account for their own personal choices as opposed to expecting society to foot the bill.

Why not provide "free" food to everyone? There is "social-good" o plenty there.

 

[AKS]

Well, the idea of toll booths are not bad after they start building more public transit lines. Force the people driving to take public transit instead if they come to Toronto because it's cheaper (no need to pay gas, insurance, tolls, etc) and better (no congestion and faster). Then most of the taxed money to repair roads can go help up keep public transit and toll booths will help maintain some of the road repairs for those who drive.

It would also encourage people to pollute less and helps Canada with kyoto's protocol agreement to decrease green house emissions.

 

[Whoaccio]

Lets try this........

That is the stupidest bent of logic I have ever heard. If all 12 million Ontarian bought a shirt in conjunction, then it would make sense.

 

[Whoaccio]

The government should just start buying cars and giving them out to people for free. Think of the social good! Lets just have the government buy us everything, give it out for free, and just call it "prepaid".

 

[Dichotomy]

Whether we like it or not, we are in a socialist state. Why not make fire and ambulance user pay, too? Apartment insurance, auto insurance - even life insurance have their costs spread around to everyone who participates, whether they use it or not. How about lifeguards at public beaches? This can get very silly, very easily.
Unless we plan to use giant poles to vault over buildings, public roads are for all to use; therefore, we all pay for them. Why should I pay for sidewalks if I don't use them?

The problem isn't whether there are enough roads or enough transit, the real issue is that too much of our money is squandered on endless studies and Covering Our Ass consultations, rather than actually doing anything.

Just as one example, I know people who worked at Pickering during the refurbishment of the reactors and the amount of silliness there easily cost taxpayers an extra couple HUNDRED million. Multiply that by every agency, every ministry in all 3 levels of government, and I am absolutely positive that enough money could be found from existing taxes to build 3 subway lines in this city and widen the DVP/Gardiner to 12 lanes.

But as long as government benefits from pitting polarized groups against each other, rather than actually having to lead or make a decision, we are doomed to live in a mediocre city.

 

[Glen]

That is the stupidest bent of logic I have ever heard.

Then you shouldn't have employed it.

 

[afransen]

The marginal cost is zero. You can use it once and "pay" just as much as someone who has used it 400+ times. That is to say, nothing.

Bingo. Someone gets it...


The critics:

I'm not proposing that we levy tolls to punish drivers. I see a scarce resource (rush-hour highway space) that is overconsumed (congestion), and the capitalist in me thinks that the best way to allocate that scarce resource in the most efficient way possible would be to apply a price to the use of highway road space. It has nothing to do with fairness, road maintenance costs, etc. Pure, straight-up economic expediency. I don't really care how the proceeds are spent, though road maintenance, transit expansion and tax cuts seem like appropriate ideas. It would also create incentive for government to provide the appropriate amount of highway road space.

We can wait forever, but there will never be perfect alternatives for every person making any trip. Thus, we need to draw the line somewhere. Why should the line be 30 years from now, when congestion will get much, much worse, and our highways will be at virtual standstill at most hours of the day?

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.

 

[kEiThZ]

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. There's various ways to implement it. For example, how about a rush hour or day time only congestion charge. This would minimize impact on tourism and deliveries would probably move to the after hours. As for the revenue from tolling the Gardiner, why not put the money directly towards improving GO lines into the 905 and reducing the GO fares (instead of Miller grabbing the extra revenue).

There are ways for that tax to be implemented and made palatable. It's a question of political will to pull it off though.

 

[afransen]

Whether we like it or not, we are in a socialist state. Why not make fire and ambulance user pay, too? Apartment insurance, auto insurance - even life insurance have their costs spread around to everyone who participates, whether they use it or not. How about lifeguards at public beaches? This can get very silly, very easily.
Unless we plan to use giant poles to vault over buildings, public roads are for all to use; therefore, we all pay for them. Why should I pay for sidewalks if I don't use them?

The problem isn't whether there are enough roads or enough transit, the real issue is that too much of our money is squandered on endless studies and Covering Our Ass consultations, rather than actually doing anything.

Just as one example, I know people who worked at Pickering during the refurbishment of the reactors and the amount of silliness there easily cost taxpayers an extra couple HUNDRED million. Multiply that by every agency, every ministry in all 3 levels of government, and I am absolutely positive that enough money could be found from existing taxes to build 3 subway lines in this city and widen the DVP/Gardiner to 12 lanes.

But as long as government benefits from pitting polarized groups against each other, rather than actually having to lead or make a decision, we are doomed to live in a mediocre city.

The reason why I suggest highways should be tolled and not things like sidewalks and such is that sidewalks are generally a public good because:
-generally speaking, consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others (unless there is so much pedestrianism than there is congestion)
-no one can be effectively excluded from using the good

Furthermore, in a practical rather than theoretical sense, it would be substantially more difficult to toll normal streets for car or pedestrian traffic than tolling limited access freeways. There would be a substantial social welfare benefit (people would be happier, simplistically) to reducing highway congestion, whereas that is significantly less so the case for normal streets and particularly sidewalks.

I find it amazing that people who consider themselves conservatives are so deathly opposed to using the market to apportion scarce goods.