Euphoria
Active Member
Either tear down the Gardiner east of Jarvis without adding tolls or replace the elevated expressway with a toll tunnel. Tolls for the sake of the Hybrid is not a fair trade.
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sixrings
Senior Member
you probably don't think its fair either that McDonalds charges you 1.49 for a cheeseburger when in 1997 you could have bought one for .59. Things cost more, such is life.
Seeing the transit fare increase year after year with either marginal increases in service or actual decreases in service isn't a fair trade either, but here we are.
Euphoria
Active Member
No, I'm interested in worthwhile investments in good city building, not needlessly raising the cost of living for lousy outcomes. Okay, imagine you get your tolls and Hybrid. Now you get to pay more for a highway that continues to sever the city from the lake. Because we'll have thrown good money after bad by propping up the surface Gardiner, the chances of removing or burying it will be slim to none. If we're going to go through this exercise of adding user fees to taxes, let's make sure there are real gains for the city. The 200 million a year these tolls are supposed to raise won't buy half a kilometre of subway. Most of that revenue will go toward building and maintaining the Gardiner.
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And those tolls won't build 1/10th of a KM of highway tunnel per year. Even with tolls, the capital cost of burying the Gardiner would chew up much of the City's borrowing capacity for the next decade, or more. That's borrowing capacity that's needed to pay for the transit infrastructure that would move far greater numbers of people than a highway tunnel ever could.
pman
Senior Member
I agree with Euphoria that most of the proposed tolls will likely go to rebuilding and maintaining the Gardiner. However, unlike him/her, I think that is a good thing. We pretty much make users pay for everything in our society, but we seem to have this notion that expressway use should be free because taxes already paid for their construction and drivers pay an effective usage fee through gas taxes. However, we have to rebuild the infrastructure periodically and linking rebuild costs to usage would seem like to be both fair and economically efficient. As for gas taxes, they mostly disappear into the federal and provincial coffers, with a small fraction going back to the municipalities that actually pay for roads. I agree 200 million a year is chump change, but it's a start and it can always be increased.
Gas taxes are also incredibly inefficient as methods to change driver behaviour. The grandma who fills up her tank every couple of weeks to drive around town on her midday errands pays the same price per litre as someone who takes up valuable road space on a highway during peak periods. One is taxing the road system more than the other, yet the tax they pay is the same. Ideally, I'd like to see tolls have 3 rates: a peak rate, a midday/shoulder peak rate, and an off-peak rate. The off-peak rate could even be free. Just something to better tie the demand for road space to the cost of using said road space.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I get Euphoria's hope. Was Boston's Big Dig expensive? Astoundingly. But look at what it's done for the city.
The question I have is whether Torontonians are actually willing to support those kinds of tolls. We aren't talking about $2 at this point. We're talking about $10.
The question I have is whether Torontonians are actually willing to support those kinds of tolls. We aren't talking about $2 at this point. We're talking about $10.
Euphoria
Active Member
The toll costs aren't that outrageous. A $3.00 toll to take a tunnel from Bathurst to the DVP would generate roughly $300 million annually. There is no cap on how much the city can borrow if projected revenues will pay down the debt. Suppose the tunnel costs from $4-6 billion to construct and about $50 million in maintenance per year. If out of $300 million in annual tolls, $100 million is dedicated to transit, $50 million is dedicated to highway maintenance, and $150 million is dedicated to paying down the capital construction costs of tunneling, the tunnel would be paid off in less than 45 years (based on tolls remaining the same for 45 years!). The upside of long-term financing is that with inflation over time that initial $4-6 billion in construction costs starts to seem like a much smaller amount. In 20-30 years the tolls will be a lot higher with inflation. So if we break the toll revenues into percentage allocations rather that dollar amounts (i.e. one third for transit, one half for construction costs, and one sixth for annual maintenance), then as tolls go up over time the construction costs will get paid off at a faster rate, in perhaps 25 to 30 years. Don't forget that interest rates are very low right now. This is the time to build infrastructure.
Now, if the tunnel continued northwest and connected with the Allen, I think usage would increase. I don't think it's reasonable for cars to stop at toll booths. Tolls should be captured electronically and be distance based (like on the 407). I don't think it's unreasonable to expect workers in the business district to pay $9.00-$12.00 to drive from Bay and King to Eglinton and the Allen a few days a week. It's especially worth the expense when there's a game at the Rogers Centre or ACC, on that Friday night of a cottage weekend, or when it's been a rough morning or day at work and drivers want a quick commute. Time is precious. Improving the connection to the waterfront, reducing travel times, and beautifying the city are enormous benefits. If we're going to have tolls, there has to be real payoff. I also think there are opportunities for combining highway tunneling with tunneling the Downtown Relief Line, but that's peripheral to my argument and best left to the engineers.
Now, if the tunnel continued northwest and connected with the Allen, I think usage would increase. I don't think it's reasonable for cars to stop at toll booths. Tolls should be captured electronically and be distance based (like on the 407). I don't think it's unreasonable to expect workers in the business district to pay $9.00-$12.00 to drive from Bay and King to Eglinton and the Allen a few days a week. It's especially worth the expense when there's a game at the Rogers Centre or ACC, on that Friday night of a cottage weekend, or when it's been a rough morning or day at work and drivers want a quick commute. Time is precious. Improving the connection to the waterfront, reducing travel times, and beautifying the city are enormous benefits. If we're going to have tolls, there has to be real payoff. I also think there are opportunities for combining highway tunneling with tunneling the Downtown Relief Line, but that's peripheral to my argument and best left to the engineers.
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jcam
Active Member
Please not the tunnel again.
But consider what else could have been done with that $16 billion? Even right now the Green Line extension project is struggling to find funding, and most of that extension is along an intact former rail ROW. Think Finch has been a terminus forever? Lechmere has been a terminus since 1922!
Yes, the Rose Kennedy Greenway is a great thing, but I can't help but feel like spending that money on transit investments and simply removing the expressway in favour of a boulevard would have had a much greater net positive. Could have even pulled a San Francisco and run a streetcar line down it, directly connecting North Station and South Station.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Keep in mind Boston also have state and federal largesse for the project (being an Interstate). Toronto has absolutely nothing to fall back on in terms of funding - and if $2 tolls causes outrage, what would $10 create?
And honestly, what was done with that space was not impressive - it should have been used to repair the damage to the urban fabric, but of course the exorbitant cost translate into nothing else but greenspace being the politically acceptable choice.
AoD
And honestly, what was done with that space was not impressive - it should have been used to repair the damage to the urban fabric, but of course the exorbitant cost translate into nothing else but greenspace being the politically acceptable choice.
AoD
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Re: Big Dig - a decadal assessment:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazin...dig-deliver/tSb8PIMS4QJUETsMpA7SpI/story.html
AoD
https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazin...dig-deliver/tSb8PIMS4QJUETsMpA7SpI/story.html
AoD
Euphoria
Active Member
I think that article is a fair assessment of the Big Dig, but the take away is that with time and further completion the project is seen as worthwhile, with the caveat the new boring technology could do the job more cheaply today and there were other, arguably better ways to improve the urban fabric, such as simply removing the elevated expressway, an option I'd support if we can offload traffic to the city road grid without excessively worsening travel times.
There are two important differences between the contexts for tunneling the Gardiner and The Big Dig: The elevated expressway in Boston remained open while the tunnel was constructed underneath it and a seawall was required to prevent flooding. No one can deny that the Big Dig was a positive transformation of the urban fabric. If we're going to toll highways, surely Canada's largest city is worthy of such improvement.
There are two important differences between the contexts for tunneling the Gardiner and The Big Dig: The elevated expressway in Boston remained open while the tunnel was constructed underneath it and a seawall was required to prevent flooding. No one can deny that the Big Dig was a positive transformation of the urban fabric. If we're going to toll highways, surely Canada's largest city is worthy of such improvement.
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