Toronto City Summit Alliance: GTA needs road tolls and taxes now

[kEiThZ]

lead: I agree totally. This needs to be done so badly. I'd say start with parking charges, as it's only fair to make the suburban and urban areas more equitable, and use that to invest in regional rail to give people good alternatives. Then use those charges to pay for regional rail and then start tolling as for each route, to pay for more regional rail and feeder bus improvements. Unfortunately, this will never happen.

I'd support this....partially. I don't see how any sort of tolls are going to be politically feasible at all without providing an alternative at the same time. CBD trips could be targeted right away because there are good alternatives. I doubt there's support to target suburb-suburb commuters though because there's not too many practical alternatives....yet. So slap on parking fees inside the 416, where we have good transit pretty much everywhere. But special attention should be focused on transit corridors and heavily congested roads. And of course the CBD. But I really doubt you'll get very far proposing parking taxes in Mississauga or Vaughan. Maybe in some corridors like Hurontario after the LRT comes in. But right now? I doubt there's support for it.

I'm always weary of pushing things too aggressively. You'll just end up alienating the public and not achieve anything for another decade or so. The idealists on here are fine. In reality, any politician that implemented some of the ideas in this thread overnight would probably ruin the electoral prospects of himself and his associates for a decade or so.

You have to bring the public with you. Not go to war with them.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

You can't retroactively apply parking taxes to existing suburban locales right away - but you can slap a tax/levy (or both) on any new developments to at least constraint the nature of new developments at the edge. Of course, no sane exurban municipality will do that since it mess with their bread and butter of office/industrial plexes surrounded by parking.

AoD

 

[kEiThZ]

You can't retroactively apply parking taxes to existing suburban locales right away - but you can slap a tax/levy (or both) on any new developments to at least constraint the nature of new developments at the edge. Of course, no sane exurban municipality will do that since it mess with their bread and butter of office/industrial plexes surrounded by parking.

AoD

That's where provincial legislation (ie Places to Grow) should help right?

 

[cacruden]

Of course there are always the unintended consequences of doing anything - like one CEO of a large office in Toronto getting fed up and moving it out to the suburbs, or two, or three.

 

[Rainforest]

Time for you road hogs to pay up.

The free ride is over!

Driving is NOT a right, it's a privilege.

Freedom of speech is a right; being elected to a public office is a privilege.

You can enjoy your freedom of speech, but in real life you can't implement much of it on your own. You need to create a coherent plan and sell it to the public, only then you might be able to advance your views.

 

[The Mad Navigator]

Freedom of speech is a right; being elected to a public office is a privilege.

You can enjoy your freedom of speech, but in real life you can't implement much of it on your own. You need to create a coherent plan and sell it to the public, only then you might be able to advance your views.

If you want real change to happen, sometimes it has to come forced, otherwise it may be too late to accomplish what needs to be done.

 

[afransen]

Personally, I think it's bullshit to levy parking taxes when zoning regulations require a minimum number of parking locations. It's just an awful idea. Why people get behind this and not tolls is beyond me.

 

[rbt]

Personally, I think it's bullshit to levy parking taxes when zoning regulations require a minimum number of parking locations. It's just an awful idea. Why people get behind this and not tolls is beyond me.

I agree but there is lots of precedence.

Nearly everything in the Ontario building code, from fire suppression requirements, plumbing, electrical, minimum common space, through accessibility requirements like hallway/door/elevator sizing have taxation on them in some way.

Completely eliminating fire code could reduce total taxation on a new 40 storey condominium by several million dollars; more if you count income tax of the workers.

 

[kEiThZ]

Personally, I think it's bullshit to levy parking taxes when zoning regulations require a minimum number of parking locations. It's just an awful idea. Why people get behind this and not tolls is beyond me.

Obviously the zoning regs would change. And tolls would come if the zoning changes don't achieve the desired effect.

 

[kEiThZ]

If you want real change to happen, sometimes it has to come forced, otherwise it may be too late to accomplish what needs to be done.

So you prefer the style of government leadership practised in the PRC?

Anyway, we are a democracy. A plan that can't command public support will be a non-starter. Simple as that.

 

[afransen]

And what are we trying to achieve by taxing parking spots? I can't see how it would do much to address congestion. Sounds like the goal is to tax cars (since cars are almost always parked). Let's go ahead and do that. But the only way that will reduce congestion is by reducing car ownership. It will do nothing to reduce distances driven, aside from the effect on car ownership.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Increasing taxes on cars is a more blunt approach to it. Firstly, it's very broad and easily navigable. Many, many people already buy cars from across the border; a weekend trip down to Detroit to get a nice shiny new car for cheap. Unless you think Toronto could convince Michigan, Ohio, New York and Quebec to also adopt higher car taxes so Toronto can have funding for it's transit and get cars off the road, you might be a bit crazy. Anything else is just making people waste gas to go outside of the province/region and killing the (unfortunate but still job-creating,) auto sale industry within the GTA/GGH. Also, it'll punish people in rural areas that have yet to have good ("reasonable") alternatives to the car.

Secondly, a more minor point, it'll take a while to really come into effect.

Thirdly, it'd do little to improve the traffic situation. With a one-off cost, if someone really needs their car to go off to the cottage or something for the weekend, they might as well use their car to commute downtown to work. And to be frank, unless you did something like had an 100% tax on automobiles, I don't think it'd do much.

With a parking tax or road tolls, you'll be able to make people use their cars less, but make it an active thing that they can rationalize each trip. Sure, if someone really really needs to go downtown in their car for some reason, they can do it. But they'll end up paying for it, and doing so over and over again will be a continuous drain of money. It's like someone putting pressure on the back of your neck. Not something really terrible, but it gets annoying after a while and you'd prefer to not have it happen to you when you can.

 

[mpd618]

And what are we trying to achieve by taxing parking spots? I can't see how it would do much to address congestion. Sounds like the goal is to tax cars (since cars are almost always parked). Let's go ahead and do that. But the only way that will reduce congestion is by reducing car ownership. It will do nothing to reduce distances driven, aside from the effect on car ownership.

Driving requires parking at destinations. If a tax on that parking makes its way to drivers it will increase the marginal cost of trips and decrease congestion.

 

[afransen]

second: think vehicle registration tax. Toronto already has one. I'd be partial to a levy on a per km basis (based on odometer readings at renewal).

Stores and most employers would be likelier to just eat a parking tax. There is significant overhead in collecting parking fees, and it would be a very wasteful process to mandate it. The only place where you'd see rates rise is in places where they already charge for parking. Ie: it's a dumb idea.

We already have a proven infrastructure for collecting highway tolls and it works quite well.

 

[The Mad Navigator]

So you prefer the style of government leadership practised in the PRC?

Anyway, we are a democracy. A plan that can't command public support will be a non-starter. Simple as that.

Fine then, real change won't or will happen albeit very slowly.