Ex-councillor offers some starting points for easing our traffic woes
Even though they are smaller cities, there is far more substantial road pricing discussion going on in Vancouver and Montreal than in the Greater Toronto Area. We will try to learn from them as we facilitate an Ontario-based dialogue.
By DON CAYO
No question, I've done my bit to be a thorn in the side of Trans-Link every time it tries to impose a dumb tax.
Unfortunately, this seems to happen so often I must be starting to sound a like a crank. For example, I opposed the vehicle levy when TransLink dusted off a proposal to impose it six years ago. It was a bad idea, I thought then and think now, to ding all vehicles an equal amount regardless of how much they're driven.
Then I opposed the proposed parking-stall tax a couple of years later. It wasn't so much the concept of this tax, it was the politicized and greedy way it was being implemented, exempting thousands of parking stalls and nailing countless acres of flat spaces that weren't used for parking at all.
Now I'm staunchly against the latest iteration of a parking tax that Trans-Link -- with the complicity of the provincial government -- has bullied through. It's a perversion of the principles behind a shift from PST to HST, and it dumps all the load onto relatively few shoulders -- those who drive and park downtown and, by extension, the businesses that serve them.
So I continue to carp, to complain, to cavil.
Yet I'm grateful to a couple of readers for reminding me that while it's easy to rail against a flawed plan, it's usually harder -- and, I think, more important -- to advocate for a better one.
And what is a better idea?
Gas tax, which nets TransLink $319 million a year, is not a bad one. But, as I pointed out in a column last month, they've pushed it about as far as they can. And property tax, which provides another $271 million, is thoroughly tapped out, not only by TransLink, but by all of the government and quasi-government bodies that dip their fingers in this pie.
I favour road pricing, congestion tolling, call it what you will. The practice of charging drivers a variable toll to drive on key roads depending on how busy it is at the time has not only raised money, it has reduced traffic and kept or made the cities that have tried it livable.
This proposal has at least two hitches. One is that it needs political will and provincial leadership. And in a province where the government is being hammered for two major tax shifts -- never mind that both the carbon tax and the HST are sound ideas -- it won't happen any time soon.
The other is the valid concern about raising the cost of driving for people who have no decent alternative. In other words, everyone in the Fraser Valley who has to cross the river to get to work. Successful road pricing is dependent on good transit alternatives, and in much of Metro Vancouver there's a serious chicken-and-egg question. How do you ethically impose the tax if you don't provide good transit? And how do you improve transit to ill-served areas if you don't first raise some money?
Readers were divided -- some passionately -- when I proposed tolls in a previous columns and blog posts. There were valid concerns, like the cost of collecting tolls. And there were thought-provoking ideas ranging from lower tolls for south-of-the-Fraser residents until their transit options are brought up to snuff, and a somewhat sweetened vehicle levy with the twist of entitling those who pay it to a worthwhile amount of free transit service. In other words, an incentive to try it and see if they'll switch to riding from driving.
Former Vancouver city councillor Peter Ladner, who is also the founder and president of Business in Vancouver magazine, pressed me to be more specific when I spoke recently on taxes to a small business group. He also spelled out his own thoughtful ideas, which later resurfaced in his column in the magazine.
We agree on tolls, but Ladner has also thought through some smaller, doable steps to get there. They include:
- Shift from property and parking taxes to fees that will reduce peak period traffic.
- Commit to specific projects, including south of the Fraser, in return for road pricing. "You pay, you benefit," he says.
- Start with voluntary tolls for users of high-occupancy lanes.
- Get ICBC to introduce pay-as-you-drive insurance rates.
- Keep pressing for efficiency, but leave TransLink enough resources to keep it intact.
These aren't the only -- and who knows if they'll turn out to be the best -- ideas. But they're surely a start place for a more focused discussion of what to do to keep Metro Vancouver growing. And moving.
dcayo@vancouversun.com
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