Should Toronto bring in a London-style congestion charge for the downtown area?

[freshcutgrass]

Sadly, Toronto is not yet ready to give up subsidizing car culture yet. We will go on living in this bubble until it's waaaaaay too late, as the smart time to implement something was a long time ago.

If you need convincing, look at how we are still humming hawing over King St. Instead of having done what we knew was obvious and inevitable ages ago, we still use half the roadway for PARKING CARS !!! and allow left turns (the simplest, no-brainer, instant, free solution ever)

We will also continue to elect the moronic politicians who support this.

The problem is compounded by the fact that what little we spend on public transit is horrendously misspent on areas that want to keep car culture AND have mass transit service that they don't qualify for ($3.2+ billion for a single subway stop in Scarb and a subway to serve a suburban highway???? )

And just when you think things couldn't possibly get weirder, we have a right-wing mayor proposing inner-city road tolls and being shut down by a left-wing premier to appease car culture right-wing suburbanites

 

[ksun]

we are talking about a city that is not even brave enough to give ROW to its busiest streetcars, to have one single car free street.
Sorry, I am not that optimistic. Toronto is still a car's paradise, and that includes downtown.

 

[steveintoronto]

we are talking about a city that is not even brave enough to give ROW to its busiest streetcars, to have one single car free street.
Sorry, I am not that optimistic. Toronto is still a car's paradise, and that includes downtown.

And a Premier wont to deny a congestion charge or toll under the City of Toronto Act.

 

[TheOneAbove]

No, a congestion charge is a ridiculous proposal and doesn't resolve any issues. It effectively creates an 'urban apartheid' in where people outside a specific urban culture aren't even encouraged to be in the city what-so-ever. What does need to happen is Toronto needs to forge great concepts like making Yonge Street pedestrian only between key locations, such as the Bloor-Dundas Square corridor. Auto-based fees to coerce people are silly; however, pedestrian only zones are good policy. Numerous world class cities have very nice pedestrian only zones in the core (Montreal and Rue St Catherine is a perfect example) and it doesn't take stealing money from car owners to do it.

 

[TheOneAbove]

we are talking about a city that is not even brave enough to give ROW to its busiest streetcars, to have one single car free street.
Sorry, I am not that optimistic. Toronto is still a car's paradise, and that includes downtown.

Toronto is anything but a drivers' paradise. Lights aren't in sync to allow for flow, light signaling is painfully short timed on most streets, which purposely limits ability for cars to flow, creating more pollution unnecessarily.

If Toronto were a driver's paradise, you'd see more attention paid to traffic flow. As it stands, cars can't go anywhere fast in the city. And that is by design. I'd like to see a change, because we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can have better vehicle traffic, better bike lanes, and better transit, all while we make things more pedestrian friendly in places where it makes sense. I'm a full supporter of shutting down Yonge between Dundas Square and Bloor to cars and making it a pedestrian only street.

The city doesn't have to penalize cars with fees, limit auto traffic flow in the greater city, or do any of those other bone-headed ideas to accomplish more pedestrian friendly areas.