Pantalone rules out toll roads
By DAVID RIDER
Mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone is ruling out road tolls on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway as a means to fund transit expansion, saying Toronto must pressure Queen’s Park to pay the tab.
Pantalone, the deputy mayor and a veteran councillor, was asked after a breakfast speech to the Toronto Board of Trade on Friday morning where, as mayor, he would find money for the Transit City light-rail expansion and beyond.
The Board of Trade has said the problems of gridlock and inadequate public transit are dire enough that unpopular measures, including road tolls, parking charges, a 1-per-cent regional sales tax or a 10 cent gas tax, need to be discussed.
Pantalone disagreed; noting only 8 cents of every dollar paid in income taxes flows back to cities. The provincial and federal governments get the rest and they should be pressured to pay for transit infrastructure, not Toronto residents through additional charges.
“I don’t accept the fact that the municipal governments which get 8 per cent of all the taxes paid should be paying for transit . . . Frankly, if we accept that we’re dead,” said Pantalone, who has not yet released a detailed transit policy.
Later, he told reporters he believes tolls would be unfair to suburban motorists who need to get in and out of downtown, saying such levies would make sense only if they were regional, on cars entering the GTA.