Symposium: Designing Transit Cities (Nov 19-20)

[Fresh Start]

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Sell off highways. We're siting on billions of dollars of infrastructure that could be sold to fund any number of other capital expenditures, or pay off debt but the result is pretty similar one way or another.

Why sell them off when we can just charge every person who drives along them rent i.e. tolls? Much more lucrative. For instance, if every vehicle on the 401 that gets off via collector lanes between Oakville and Pickering gets charged a flat fee of say $3.50 regardless of distance (60 km or 6 km makes no difference) that would generate roughly $1.5 million dollars per day or $5.4 billion dollars every year. Of course the danger then lies in motorists dumping onto major local arteries to avoid the toll, but still most drivers likely will figure the time savings are worth it and still use the service. And with all that money going towards beefing up crosstown and interegional public transportation, very soon most routine commuters could reasonably opt to leave the car at home knowing that no matter where they originate from it'd be possible to get to their workplace/school in about hour via transit.

 

[newuser2k9]

Why sell them off when we can just charge every person who drives along them rent i.e. tolls? Much more lucrative. For instance, if every vehicle on the 401 that gets off via collector lanes between Oakville and Pickering gets charged a flat fee of say $3.50 regardless of distance (60 km or 6 km makes no difference) that would generate roughly $1.5 million dollars per day or $5.4 billion dollars every year. Of course the danger then lies in motorists dumping onto major local arteries to avoid the toll, but still most drivers likely will figure the time savings are worth it and still use the service. And with all that money going towards beefing up crosstown and interegional public transportation, very soon most routine commuters could reasonably opt to leave the car at home knowing that no matter where they originate from it'd be possible to get to their workplace/school in about hour via transit.

It's the right solution, but it's political suicide. No mayor would ever try it.

 

[Second_in_pie]

It's the right solution, but it's political suicide. No mayor would ever try it.

That's why we have Metrolinx.

Imagine if we had more integrated fares for less money? Perhaps a person traveling from Oshawa to Hamilton would pay $3.50, but then a person traveling from Markham to Toronto would pay $1. That's billions of extra dollars per year for Metrolinx to invest in Transit. At absolute minimum, that's 4 km of subway per year.

 

[newuser2k9]

That's why we have Metrolinx.

Imagine if we had more integrated fares for less money? Perhaps a person traveling from Oshawa to Hamilton would pay $3.50, but then a person traveling from Markham to Toronto would pay $1. That's billions of extra dollars per year for Metrolinx to invest in Transit. At absolute minimum, that's 4 km of subway per year.

As was mentioned in the Madrid Miracle thread, if we did such, we would have permanent subway teams in place. Those teams could mean an exponential increase in productivity and efficiency per dollar spent. Consistent transit dollars would amount to an exponential increase in network, which would net more revenue and reinforce the cycle.

 

[Whoaccio]

Obviously the financial rational behind privatization has many components. Anything said at this point is just guesswork, but I would bet quite heavily that the return on the highway network is lower than what we could get elsewhere. Right now we loose money on the highways, so it's quite obvious that we would be better off selling the highways and paying off debt. If we introduce tolls that changes the equation. Somehow I doubt the Province will ever make a profit off the highways though.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Obviously the financial rational behind privatization has many components. Anything said at this point is just guesswork, but I would bet quite heavily that the return on the highway network is lower than what we could get elsewhere. Right now we loose money on the highways, so it's quite obvious that we would be better off selling the highways and paying off debt. If we introduce tolls that changes the equation. Somehow I doubt the Province will ever make a profit off the highways though.

There's no real rationale for selling them beyond the sort of cynical belief that a private company would run things more efficiently.

They would also need to build into the price a healthy profit margin for themselves, and would be far less accountable to their customers (see the 407's 'delayed invoices') than a government-run system.

 

[Whoaccio]

There's no real rationale for selling them beyond the sort of cynical belief that a private company would run things more efficiently.

Ohh yea, there's no evidence of that whatsoever. In any case, that's not what I said. I said that it wouldn't be politically or ethically feasible for Ontario to simply introduce tolls on the highways and use the proceeds to fund other things. If we privatized the roads, Ontario can realize value by essentially selling the right to make a profit.

They would also need to build into the price a healthy profit margin for themselves, and would be far less accountable to their customers (see the 407's 'delayed invoices') than a government-run system.

Are you serious? The entire justification for tolls amongst most people is that it will let the government use the proceeds to fund whatever their favorite cause is. I hesitate to put words in your mouth, but I doubt you are simply advocating a "revenue neutral" introduction of tolls to match operating costs. The 407 is far more ethical in that revenue is reinvested directly into the underlying asset thereby making it more responsive to customer preference.

And, just to be very clear on this, the financial viability isn't static. This would be one of the biggest asset sales in history and there would have to be a lot of due diligence done. There are dozens of different factors to consider. I don't know where the point is at which Ontario would realize value, but it exists and is likely quite feasible to achieve.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Ohh yea, there's no evidence of that whatsoever. In any case, that's not what I said. I said that it wouldn't be politically or ethically feasible for Ontario to simply introduce tolls on the highways and use the proceeds to fund other things. If we privatized the roads, Ontario can realize value by essentially selling the right to make a profit.

Okay, so we're starting from different points of reference. Why isn't it ethical to use highway tolls to fund other things? Especially if that 'other thing' is specifically within the same realm, like transit.

Are you serious? The entire justification for tolls amongst most people is that it will let the government use the proceeds to fund whatever their favorite cause is. I hesitate to put words in your mouth, but I doubt you are simply advocating a "revenue neutral" introduction of tolls to match operating costs.

I'd advocate that governments take a look at what it costs to maintain, operate and expand our transportation system every year (roads and rail), and set user fees accordingly. Separating things out so that rail pays for rail and roads pays for roads is dumb, as is introducing a private entity that will want to take 20% off the top for their profit margin every year.

The 407 is far more ethical in that revenue is reinvested directly into the underlying asset thereby making it more responsive to customer preference.

If most of the revenue made from the 407 was reinvested into the 407 that highway would be gold-plated. The revenue is making shareholders happy. Not customers.

 

[nfitz]

Okay, so we're starting from different points of reference. Why isn't it ethical to use highway tolls to fund other things? Especially if that 'other thing' is specifically within the same realm, like transit.

I agree ... not sure what is wrong with using tolling to fund transit. I'm in favour of road tolling, because I drive a lot, and am tired of getting stuck in traffic. For personal travel invariably I use the TTC, but for business travel, it just doesn't cut it ... tolling is fine with me; most of the time I'm not paying for it; and the rare occasion I am, it's saving me time.

If the tolls are used to pay for transit, then that is good for drivers, as it reduced congestion on the roads.

 

[Whoaccio]

There's not much wrong with using tolls to fund other projects, but GraphicMatt made the point that a private companies desire for a "healthy profit margin" would make private roads inherently unaccountable to their customers. There is no difference though between a private company making a profit on running a road and the Government running a profit on the same road so as to subsidize another project. If the point of the government installing tolls is to redirect profits elsewhere, then it would be exceedingly unaccountable to the road's customers.

Re goldplated -

Over the past five years, the 407 ETR corp has privately funded an extra 150 lane km of capacity. When the highway was privatized in the 90s it had about 351 lane kms, today it has 751 lane kms. Clearly a great deal of the revenue generated by the roadway is reinvested into the roadway as opposed to some Swiss Bank account by some plutocrat. Would that investment have occured had the province retained the road? Most likely not, first because political pressure likely would have lead to lower tolls or no tolls at all and beyond that it likely would have been redirected to less viable areas of government.

 

[Dan416]

No it's not. You guys both like transit. Your plans overlap. You believe in LRT in certain corridors. Saying "I think the Sheppard subway should be expanded to STC" isn't tantamount to heresy in anyone's mind.

Don't act like you're some persecuted group being overpowered by a dominant ideology when no one associated with your movement has ever attended any kind of public meeting and put forth alternative ideas.

If we were dealing with reasonable people, you might be correct. However, LRTistas are not reasonable. If they were, SOS wouldn't exist. SOS is a direct response to the glorification of LRT above all other forms of public transit (bus, BRT, subway).

 

[hbl33]

If we were dealing with reasonable people, you might be correct. However, LRTistas are not reasonable. If they were, SOS wouldn't exist. SOS is a direct response to the glorification of LRT above all other forms of public transit (bus, BRT, subway).

How would subways alone can save TTC?
Surely it doesn't mean build subways along every arteries in Toronto including Lawrence, Islington, Jane, Lakeshore and Kennedy...

 

[Dan416]

How would subways alone can save TTC?
Surely it doesn't mean build subways along every arteries in Toronto including Lawrence, Islington, Jane, Lakeshore and Kennedy...

Um, of course not. We have never advocated for that. We advocate extending ALL current subway lines from their termini (Kipling, Kennedy, Downsview, Finch, Don Mills) plus 2 new lines (DRL and Eglinton). That is our core network plan.

SOS isn't replacing the TTC. We're trying to save its subways. Our subways have been long-neglected and haven't really grown in years, in spite of massive added population to the GTA. Bloor was last extended 20 years ago. And it was a 1 stop extension.

SOS can't and won't make plans for every corridor. We're focussed on the (neglected) subway system.

 

[Disparishun]

There's not much wrong with using tolls to fund other projects, but GraphicMatt made the point that a private companies desire for a "healthy profit margin" would make private roads inherently unaccountable to their customers. There is no difference though between a private company making a profit on running a road and the Government running a profit on the same road so as to subsidize another project.

In GraphicMatt's version, you ensure that monopolies charge reasonable prices by making sure that their owner (the government) has no incentive to charge higher prices. I don't think that works. It assumes too much (the government may, in fact, have other incentives to charge high prices, or disincentives to work at lowering them). And it rules out too much (i.e. competition for delivery of the monopoly's services). Rather than ensure monopolies have the right owners, I'd much rather regulate them -- establish rules explicitly, and hold them to it. The 407 is the best example of I can think of how stupid it is to contract anything out to private service providers and then fail to regulate them at all.

On road tolling, I would like to see some sort of pricing relationship between transit and highways. Putting aside the switchover IT costs to blue-sky it for a moment, what if both public transit and highways had distance-based pricing? The price per kilometre for cars would -- given car's above-one carrying capacity -- be something like double the public transit price per kilometre. Or 1.8 times, or whatever the average people/car is. In fact, you could continuously the ratio of highway to public transit per-km pricing, to match the average persons per car. This would naturally continue to rise, since each higher prices would incent higher persons per car, etc.

 

[dunkalunk]

I hear there is talk in the netherlands concerning GPS tracking to collect by distance calculated by the time of day used. If someone knows more, please elaborate. However, the privacy invasion implications of implementing such a system would likely cause any sort of thing to ever to come to fruition.

In any case, I beleive an additional tax on all parking spaces would be the best way to take cars off the road and promote intensification. Some money from this could be used for transit improvements, as well as additional money collected from fares of people travelling by transit instead of driving.