Tolls, Road Pricing and Congestion Pricing

[afransen]

Thought I would extract this discussion from the TRBOT regional rail thread.

Only 1 of these 2 things can be true at once: Either toll highways don't affect how people commute to downtown, which means very few people will stop using the highway and the "benefit" of a free and open highway doesn't exist, or toll highways do push people off them, which include people that may not afford constantly using it. We have an example of a toll highway here in Toronto, its called the 407, and it causes chaos to our highway network. People who
can't afford to use it squeezed on to nearby local streets such as Highway 7 or the 401 (which makes the congestion on that highway even worse), and the only people who regularly use it are those who are in the upper middle class or rich people who have a ton of money, or have a decent enough salary where they're fine with paying the toll.

Now you might say that this is the case for the 407 because its far too expensive, but let me tell you something, if the 407 was any cheaper it would get really congested. If the 407 had a flat fare of like $2, it would reach nearly DVP during off peak hours levels of bad almost instantly, so these people won't have a "free and fast" highway, they would just be stuck paying extra to commute just because (well in the case of the 407 way less, but the subject is other highways).

Tbh, I don't even think you need to be that stringent. I may have not may this explicitly clear, I think I may have been a bit too vague in some of my older posts, but I think I would be okay with general tolls on the central portions of DVP/Gardiner during rush hours explicitly which is when the GO Trains are running, and frequently. While the GO Train doesn't have great coverage from a pedestrian scale, on a car scale its actually pretty good and you could easily access a GO station within 10 minutes of driving from most places in the region (Exceptions exist for like Northern Durham and Northeastern York, but that's what East Gwillimbury and Bloomington GO are for), and when most of the region will have frequent all day GO service through RER, feel free to implement tolls at all times.

The 407 is clearly not busy in the evenings. Tolls could be set lower during off peak times and still allow traffic to be free-flowing. If road tolls could really be or would need to be set as high as the 407 to make a dent in congestion on highways, I would say that presents an opportunity. Typical toll rate is $0.40-0.50/km. If half the kms driven in the city are highway kms, and a driver drives around 20k km per year, that would be $4k-5k per year per person in toll revenue. Say there are 4M drivers in the GTA. That's $20B/year in revenue. I kind of refuse to believe you could not shift any behaviour, particularly if you made off-peak trips quite cheap (provided there is no congestion at that time). One idea would to be to put the tolls in place, take part of the revenues to fund improvements in transit, and the rest as a rebate to residents regardless of transportation behavior, similar to the carbon tax. Call it a transportation dividend. Maybe give every resident 3k km per year in free off-peak highway kms.

I just can't see the case for building new highways if we say they are essentially worthless and the use of which should be sold for 'free'.

 

[afransen]

Part of my motivation for starting this thread is to have a non-off topic place to post this video.

 

[ARG1]

Thought I would extract this discussion from the TRBOT regional rail thread.



The 407 is clearly not busy in the evenings. Tolls could be set lower during off peak times and still allow traffic to be free-flowing. If road tolls could really be or would need to be set as high as the 407 to make a dent in congestion on highways, I would say that presents an opportunity. Typical toll rate is $0.40-0.50/km. If half the kms driven in the city are highway kms, and a driver drives around 20k km per year, that would be $4k-5k per year per person in toll revenue. Say there are 4M drivers in the GTA. That's $20B/year in revenue. I kind of refuse to believe you could not shift any behaviour, particularly if you made off-peak trips quite cheap (provided there is no congestion at that time). One idea would to be to put the tolls in place, take part of the revenues to fund improvements in transit, and the rest as a rebate to residents regardless of transportation behavior, similar to the carbon tax. Call it a transportation dividend. Maybe give every resident 3k km per year in free off-peak highway kms.

I just can't see the case for building new highways if we say they are essentially worthless and the use of which should be sold for 'free'.

Except it is cheaper during those times.

To give an example, Weekdays between 3:30 and 6:00 PM, it costs $11.13 excluding the toll and Camera charge to travel from Highway 400 and Highway 404. The same trip overnight (between 7PM and 6AM) costs $5.11, over 2x cheaper.

Here is the Toll Calculator in case you want to look at it yourself: https://407etr.com/en/tolls/tolls/toll-calculator.html

Edit: Here is the complete price chart:

https://imgur.com/87Rv7O9

 

[afransen]

Except it is cheaper during those times.

To give an example, Weekdays between 3:30 and 6:00 PM, it costs $11.13 excluding the toll and Camera charge to travel from Highway 400 and Highway 404. The same trip overnight (between 7PM and 6AM) costs $5.11, over 2x cheaper.

Here is the Toll Calculator in case you want to look at it yourself: https://407etr.com/en/tolls/tolls/toll-calculator.html

It could be even cheaper. I would maximize the delta to encourage off-peak travel. I can see a case for the floor on tolls to only be at the estimated rate of wear and tear on the roadway.

 

[lenaitch]

Without knowing the actual legislation or agreement, what control does the province have on establishing or 'encouraging' toll structures? It is, after all, a private highway, and previous legal attempts to alter the original agreement didn't go well.

 

[afransen]

Without knowing the actual legislation or agreement, what control does the province have on establishing or 'encouraging' toll structures? It is, after all, a private highway, and previous legal attempts to alter the original agreement didn't go well.

I'd say they have no control over 407. But the toll highways the province controls they can influence. And that scheme could influence the 407 ETR.

 

[ARG1]

I'd say they have no control over 407. But the toll highways the province controls they can influence. And that scheme could influence the 407 ETR.

I honestly doubt that. Any toll highway run by the government would have the toll run under a different business model than the ETR. The 407 is run on a "luxury highway" business model, where its a "luxurious" alternative to stuff like Highway 7 or the 401, where the highway is wide enough for congestion to basically never be a problem, road is frequently repaved to have no cracks in it, and issues are often patched up. They are also typically technologically ahead, such as changing the concrete to a more noise free concrete on many lanes, removing the constant screeching sound that used to plague the highway.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The province sets the toll rates on the 407 East - and they are significantly cheaper than the 407ETR. Like half the price.

 

[afransen]

I honestly doubt that. Any toll highway run by the government would have the toll run under a different business model than the ETR. The 407 is run on a "luxury highway" business model, where its a "luxurious" alternative to stuff like Highway 7 or the 401, where the highway is wide enough for congestion to basically never be a problem, road is frequently repaved to have no cracks in it, and issues are often patched up. They are also typically technologically ahead, such as changing the concrete to a more noise free concrete on many lanes, removing the constant screeching sound that used to plague the highway.

Would the 407 be differentiated as 'luxurious' if we set tolls appropriately on all GTA highways to ensure they are free-flowing? 407 gets its pricing power from the crushing gridlock on the 401.

 

[gibsonm]

I wouldn't toll any highways unless the money collected is publicly earmarked for some public good. Otherwise you'll get nothing in exchange for these tolls except an added expense for commuters and a deterrent from visiting and spending money in Toronto. If the revenues go in a slush fund as per usual it's not worth tolling. If the Gardiner were to be buried and transit lines added, then sure. I'm doubtful.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Instead of tolling highways or even a gas tax (which becomes less useful as cars get more efficient and/or electric), we should be doing something like what they're doing in Oregon.

https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article233435497.html

 

[afransen]

I wouldn't toll any highways unless the money collected is publicly earmarked for some public good. Otherwise you'll get nothing in exchange for these tolls except an added expense for commuters and a deterrent from visiting and spending money in Toronto. If the revenues go in a slush fund as per usual it's not worth tolling. If the Gardiner were to be buried and transit lines added, then sure. I'm doubtful.

Tolls by themselves can create a public good (even if you took the money and burned it) by providing decongested highways and rewarding people who make different choices to reduce congestion, like trip shifting or carpooling. Thankfully, we don't have to burn the money, we can use it for transit, or even just give it back to residents to use as they please and reduce equity concerns.

 

[gibsonm]

I don't support schemes that take money from people who earn it and give it to those who don't except to prevent hunger, homelessness, and other clear social ills. Tolls in a country with high gas taxes and many other transportation taxes would be another cash grab tax on existence, a mismanaged pet project that creates winners and losers based on who the program designer favours. No thanks. Equity here has nothing to do with fairness. It's code for a biased collectivization and redistribution of property. However, I can see the need to tax electric vehicle mileage once the percentage of EVs reaches a certain proportion of all vehicles, perhaps around twenty percent.

 

[Northern Light]

I don't support schemes that take money from people who earn it and give it to those who don't except to prevent hunger, homelessness, and other clear social ills. Tolls in a country with high gas taxes and many other transportation taxes would be another cash grab tax on existence, a mismanaged pet project that creates winners and losers based on who the program designer favours. No thanks. Equity here has nothing to do with fairness. It's code for a biased collectivization and redistribution of property. However, I can see the need to tax electric vehicle mileage once the percentage of EVs reaches a certain proportion of all vehicles, perhaps around twenty percent.

I just posted this in another thread:

*******

*****

Now....let's add............did you just say Canada was a high gas tax country?

Gas Taxes Across OECD Countries | Gas Tax Rates

The U.S. federal government funds infrastructure projects through the highway trust fund. How do gas taxes compare across OECD countries? Federal gas tax.

taxfoundation.org

I don't think so.

The prices above are per gallon, but it serves the same purpose.

The vast majority of OECD countries have substantially higher gas taxes than does Canada (including provincial rates)

 

[tsm1072]

I just posted this in another thread:

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View attachment 312643

*****

Now....let's add............did you just say Canada was a high gas tax country?

Gas Taxes Across OECD Countries | Gas Tax Rates

The U.S. federal government funds infrastructure projects through the highway trust fund. How do gas taxes compare across OECD countries? Federal gas tax.

taxfoundation.org

I don't think so.

The prices above are per gallon, but it serves the same purpose.

The vast majority of OECD countries have substantially higher gas taxes than does Canada (including provincial rates)

The other consideration with the gas tax is fuel efficiency. With more fuel-efficient cars, there is less revenue per km driven. If the goal of the gas tax is to effectively pay for the infrastructure that supports driving, then it should have gone up by more than just inflation.