You should prepare to pay to drive in the city

Item date: 
November 16, 2011
Link: 
Toronto Star - Wheels.ca
Item context: 

Journalist has most things right -- especially in terms of transparency. However, London/Stockholm style congestion charge is not the answer for Toronto as it is horizontally inequitable. We must have a comprehensive system where everyone everywhere pays -- the opposite of what we have today.

By LORRAINE SOMMERFIELD, Special to the Star

I am one of Them.

I’m a suburbanite who drives to your city, leaving behind acres of free parking to sit on a clogged artery of a highway like an unwelcome parasite...

I do this once every few weeks, though I know people who do it every day. I sit at red lights and watch hundreds of people walking and cycling to their urban destinations. Hundreds of people moving far more quickly than I am.

Congestion tolls are being put in place in large cities around the world. Should I have to pay to come to downtown Toronto during peak hours in my car? Of course I should... The only question is, how much is fair?

The biggest problem, of course, is our lack of convenient public transit. Looking overseas at congestion tolls in places like London and Stockholm, it’s clear that other major cities are so much further ahead on the transit curve than Toronto...

... Without exception, every proposal that has anything to do with driving is called a tax grab. Red light cameras? Tax grab. Photo radar? Tax grab. Road tolls? Licence fees? Parking permits?

Whether we like it or not, it’s only going to get worse. Our infrastructure is crumbling... Infrastructure is not a sexy issue for politicians; gridlock is a key part of it, and most will dodge it like political dynamite...

It’s pretty easy to go back to the middle of the last century and ask city planners what they were thinking. Laying out communities that relied exclusively on the car may have worked when gas was cheap and populations were sparse. But with our roadways way beyond capacity and travel as we know it — which we take for granted — changing rapidly, it doesn’t take a genius to see you can’t just keep building more and more roads. How much air can you put in a balloon?

If we’re part of a collective, it makes sense that you have to support ideas with a vision to do the best for the most. I can’t expect every decision that may affect me badly to be off the table simply for my convenience.

As for tax grabs? Personally, I prefer the upfront clarity of paying to choose to drive in certain places at certain times over Big Brother cameras. When you’re one of Them, a little transparency goes a long way.

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