Tolls and congestion charges unlikely for Ottawa roads

By ROBERT JANELLE

Toll roads aren't so common in Canada, and they're non-existent in the nation's capital. If local politicians have their way, that won't change anytime soon.

In an e-mail, Rideau-Rockcliffe councillor Peter Clark—the only member of city council to return our request—said he wouldn't expect people in Ottawa to react positively to new tolls on existing roads.

“It is not practicable, given that these amenities currently exist and any movement towards putting tolls in place would entail major investments and major citizen protests,” he said.

Nor is there any plan at the provincial level to add any kind of toll system to the provincial highways 417 or 174, says Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi.

“At the moment, the province is not considering toll roads,” says Naqvi.”We're looking for balance between more efficient highway structures and investments in public transit.”

Naqvi added that he'd prefer to approach the issue of congestion with measures like dedicated bus lanes or highways, or High Occupancy Vehicle lanes where only vehicles carrying two or more people are allowed.

“I prefer to find ways to encourage people to take public transit instead of driving,” he says.

Besides toll roads, another option cities might consider to both ease congestion and fund infrastructure and public transit: congestion fees.

The most famous example of a congestion charge in practice is London, U.K., where drivers must pay ₤10 to enter Central London from 7 a.m.–6 p.m. during weekdays.

Clark suggested such a fee could be workable, but he wouldn't expect much support from Queen's Park.

“Tolls on entry roads to the city might be useful, but the province might balk,” he said.

For his part, Naqvi says the city could put such a plan in place without provincial approval only if no provincial roads—the Queensway, for example—were involved.

That said, it's unlikely congestion fees would find much support around the council table in Ottawa. Former Capital councillor Clive Doucet, who eventually ran for mayor in 2010, floated the idea back in 2006 and was rebuked by fellow councillors.

Three councillors, all of whom still sit on city council, registered their disagreement in an Ottawa Citizen article at the time.

• "There are so many down sides to this, I find it shocking that one of my colleagues would propose it. —Gloucester-Southgate councillor Diane Deans
• It would kill the core of the city, deter businesses from locating in the core, effect businesses in his ward, and have many, many other negative impacts. It's an astonishingly wrong-headed idea. —Gloucester-Southgate councillor Diane Deans
• It's ill-conceived, and it's doomed to fail. —Alta Vista councillor Peter Hume
• You can't start penalizing people for getting to work or going to the doctor's office or shopping. It just doesn't make any sense. I understand what Clive is trying to do, but he has to realize people can't bike or walk to work from rural areas. - Osgoode councillor Doug Thompson

During the last municipal election, Ecology Ottawa asked mayoral candidates about congestion fees. Mayor Jim Watson did not support them at the time.

“I do not support a downtown congestion fee. This may be an option on the future, but we also need to focus on other priorities in the city such as improving cycling infrastructure and public transportation operations,” he told the group in response to their survey.

Naqvi takes a similar view. He says he'd prefer to see public transit improved in Ottawa before other congestion measures like tolls or congestion fees are enacted.

“If you don't have good public transit, it's not going to work,” he says.

Ecology Ottawa policy coordinator Trevor Haché, a former federal NDP candidate in Ottawa-Vanier, says he doesn't agree with that line of thinking.

“If politicians are saying we're not going to do this until we have a world-class public transit system, we're going to be waiting too long,” he says.

Haché says the city should investigate user fees for roads sooner rather than later.

“We believe that the full cost of using roads is not fully being paid for by the people that use them,” he says. “The cost of building and maintaining roads is astronomical.”

Haché noted that toll roads are quite common in the United States, and people adapt to them. London's congestion charge has been quite successful, he says, despite the controversy when it was first enacted in 2003.