New Transit Funding Sources

[amnesiajune]

The problem is that you would have people in Toronto paying for everything and the 40% of the DVP/Gardiner traffic which is 905 would pay nothing.

This overused line isn't true. They don't get a property tax bill, but businesses in this city pay sky-high property tax rates - more than double what they'd pay in any of the surrounding municipalities - because anyone can come into Toronto from the surrounding cities to work or shop. And the revenue from the 1.54% municipal property tax (the tax rates in surrounding cities are ~0.7%) subsidizes Toronto's low city tax rate of 0.5% on single-family homes and condos, while the rate in the surrounding cities are as high as 1.2%.

A gas tax would only really work id it was done on a regional basis so everyone has to pay and people wouldn't be crossing a boundary to save a couple bucks. This is what Translink did..........the many gas taxes are region wide.

Nobody's going to drive half an hour to save a dollar or two on gasoline. That needs to be factored into any gas tax. In Vancouver, the tax is 17 cents/litre, so it needs to be very broad. In Montreal it's 3 cents/litre, so hardly anyone goes out of their way to dodge it, even though you can just cross a bridge to Brossard or Boucherville and the tax isn't applied.

 

[BurlOak]

I am actually not a big fan of road tolls. They seem to penalize a set of people for the sole reason they live in one particular area. I have always thought that gas taxes were a far better solution and far fairer.......the more you drive, the more you pay. It also encourages people to drive smaller cars to get better mileage which automatically also means lower emissions.

The problem is that you would have people in Toronto paying for everything nd the 40% of the DVP/Gardiner traffic which is 905 would pay nothing. A gas tax would only really work id it was done on a regional basis so everyone has to pay and people wouldn't be crossing a boundary to save a couple bucks. This is what Translink did..........the many gas taxes are region wide.

Unfortunately the people who don't want to pay tolls will also rebuke any gas taxes, especially drivers in the 905. They want better roads and transit but refuse to pay for it. When you have such obstructionist views then tolls seem to be the only alternative.

1. Many people in Toronto deliberately chose homes conveniently located near freeways, they will be punished.
2. Road tolls does nothing to encourage people from the centre spine of Toronto (either side of Yonge) from using transit.
3. Tolls on 2 freeways encourages traffic to use local roads instead of freeways - the exact opposite of what we want.

It seems if you want to raise money fairly, the two options are;

1. A gas tax that affects everyone, either the entire province, or graduated as one gets farther away from the City core. It encourages ALL people not to drive, although people driving around the periphery are punished but likely have no alternative. It is easy to implement.
2. A congestion zone charge. It encourage ALL people not to drive downtown where there are plenty of alternatives. It is difficult to implement since there are many access points to the downtown zone of Toronto.

 

[BurlOak]

Nobody's going to drive half an hour to save a dollar or two on gasoline.

Its not people in Toronto who would drive to Burlington to buy gas. Its about gas stations near the boundary (between gas tax and not tax) being unfairly treated.

 

[sixrings]

what happens when everyone drives EV vehicles. Gas taxes would have worked 20 years ago but in the next 10 years we will be driving more hybrids or EVs than anything. It has to be tolls and I live directly beside a highway.

 

[BurlOak]

at least with gas tax, there is $0 cost of implementation.

No gantries, no electronics, no enforcement. Thus when the number of electric vehicles gets large enough to influence revenue, the method of taxation can change with no lost cost for implementation of the first solution.

 

[dowlingm]

Have read back several pages and am stunned that the announced road tolls are being seen as anything other than a hail mary to save the Gardiner rebuild, especially the Gardiner East which just went up almost 50 percent in estimated cost. Without the ability to "reassure" Council that there would be an income stream to pay the additional $1 billion debt related to the Gardiner (remember, a toll 8 years from now can't pay bonds which need to be borrowed in the next few years to fund construction) then the extra borrowing requirement would hit Toronto's ceiling of debt to income - a ceiling already under pressure as it is. Instead I read several people describe possible transit benefits. One possible political outcome is that the money is borrowed now but the pressure from 905 Mayors and MPPs kills the tolling proposal leaving Toronto to make severe cuts AND property tax increases in the 2020s to pay the bondholders.

The boulevard option should be brought back to council forthwith, and councillors who want to press on with spending half a billion additional dollars over the previous delta vs Gardiner East Hybrid be obliged to go on the record as voting for that.

 

[Cobra]

I wish we could move as fast as Montreal are doing with their REM train

They claim they will start building the line in 2017and open the line in 2020. I doubt it since the rumored train they plan to use is the latest Skytrain from Bombardier... and we all know how "fast and efficient" they are.

They are adding extra 3 stations connecting to the orange, green and blue line of the Metro. The overall cost of the project is now estimated at $5.9B with CDPQ (Caisse de depot et Placement du Quebec) investing $3.1 B. This entity uses the RRQ (Quebec's pension plan) to make investments worldwide and uses the returns to ensure the province's pension plan long term viability.

New Stations
The 3 extra stations would open at a later date.

My point is that this is what happen when you get the money upfront. You can start the project once it clears all the assessment almost immediately without having to wait for higher level of governments to send the first few cheques or having to accumulate enough to get started. The tolls increases Toronto's ability to borrow their share of the cost for a project at a lower interest rate in today's dollars and start right away once the project is shovel ready. I've been told however that most likely, the tolls would have to be at least in planning stage before any borrowing at a preferential rate could be applied.

I'm hoping that's what Tory intends to do and not just saving/accumulating money for different projects until he gets enough to get something going. He showed some courage with the tolls and he needs to see this through to the end. I'm worried that he doesn't want to tell Torontonians that the city will have to go into massive debt so he gets reelected but with our dire infrastructure needs, there's no choice. We have to go in debt knowing that we can use all the new taxes to pay it back.

Question is, will he?

 

[Cobra]

Have read back several pages and am stunned that the announced road tolls are being seen as anything other than a hail mary to save the Gardiner rebuild, especially the Gardiner East which just went up almost 50 percent in estimated cost. Without the ability to "reassure" Council that there would be an income stream to pay the additional $1 billion debt related to the Gardiner (remember, a toll 8 years from now can't pay bonds which need to be borrowed in the next few years to fund construction) then the extra borrowing requirement would hit Toronto's ceiling of debt to income - a ceiling already under pressure as it is. Instead I read several people describe possible transit benefits. One possible political outcome is that the money is borrowed now but the pressure from 905 Mayors and MPPs kills the tolling proposal leaving Toronto to make severe cuts AND property tax increases in the 2020s to pay the bondholders.

The boulevard option should be brought back to council forthwith, and councillors who want to press on with spending half a billion additional dollars over the previous delta vs Gardiner East Hybrid be obliged to go on the record as voting for that.

I'd rather bury the Gardiner.

Debt is bad when you have no viable way to repay it, for once, if all those new taxes and tolls passes, this debt is worth having. User taxes can be increased if there's a market fluctuation and interest rates start climbing.

The City has been borrowing the entire time to balance their books. That's the worst debt there is. Going into debt (credit card) to pay rent and grocery gets you eventually bankrupt. Going into debt (mortgage) to build assets and increase their value is an investment and a better use of debt

 

[bobbob911]

Has anyone parsed out that new $3.6B price tag to reconfirm what the build costs are vs the 100-year maintenance estimate? Obviously the latter is not really funded by any road tolls in the next couple of years, its completely irrelevant.

 

[dowlingm]

Going into debt (mortgage) to build assets and increase their value is an investment and a better use of debt

Except we're not building a new expressway here - we're actually shortening it, eliminating the Lakeshore East-Gardiner ramps. This work is merely to maintain the existing remaining roadway. The hybrid layout, in fact, negatively impacts adjoining city assets - land development value - but when Council deliberated, Staff said they couldn't say by how much because the property market was "too uncertain"

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Has anyone parsed out that new $3.6B price tag to reconfirm what the build costs are vs the 100-year maintenance estimate? Obviously the latter is not really funded by any road tolls in the next couple of years, its completely irrelevant.

What I want to know are

1. What are the new capital cost estimates

2. How much will maintenance cost per year

 

[sixrings]

I'd rather bury the Gardiner.

Debt is bad when you have no viable way to repay it, for once, if all those new taxes and tolls passes, this debt is worth having. User taxes can be increased if there's a market fluctuation and interest rates start climbing.

The City has been borrowing the entire time to balance their books. That's the worst debt there is. Going into debt (credit card) to pay rent and grocery gets you eventually bankrupt. Going into debt (mortgage) to build assets and increase their value is an investment and a better use of debt

Why couldn't we use debt to build transit assets then?

 

[nfitz]

I wish we could move as fast as Montreal are doing with their REM train

Let's see when (if) they actually build it. There's been elements of that plan floating around for over 50 years already. The grass is always greener ...

 

[salsa]

This is just stupid.

 

[Cobra]

This is just stupid.

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She's crazy. She won't even pay for Crosstown West into Mississauga