Toll Roads for Transit

by Sara Mahmood

There’s no doubt that Toronto has a congestion problem. If the city doesn’t start making some big moves soon, it’s going to drive itself straight into a traffic nightmare. According to the Cordon Count Program, the number of vehicles entering Toronto between 6:30 am and 9:30 am on weekdays has increased by 75 per cent from 1985 to 2006. In 2006, over 313,000 vehicles entered the city every weekday morning! As these drivers don’t live within the city, they don’t pay taxes to help maintain the Toronto roads they use on a daily basis. If the city introduced toll roads on some of its major highways and used the funds collected to expand our transit system, the TTC could become a more viable mode of transportation for commuters.

Unfortunately, Toronto hasn’t substantially expanded its transit system since the 1970s, amounting to almost $100 billion in costs required for updates. The city needs to make up for 40 years of under-investing. Currently, people who take transit take 20 minutes longer to reach their destination than those who use cars to get to work. The TTC needs to become competitive with driving because, with almost 100,000 people moving into the city each year the problem will only get worse and there simply isn’t enough space to build more roads.

Toronto’s congestion issue affects everyone. There is a direct correlation between traffic congestion in the GTA and the productivity gap currently plaguing Ontario.

Worldwide, there’s a growing move towards toll roads. In Western Europe, Japan, and much of North America, tolls finance most major highways and bridges.

Are toll roads becoming more popular? According to a recent Angus Reid poll, only 54 per cent of respondents were opposed to toll roads, but 74 per cent were against expanding public transit through a 10 per cent tax on gas. Perhaps the public is beginning to understand that tolls help pay for better transit across the city.

According to the Texas Department of Transportation, which also uses an electronic tolling system, it takes one-fifth of the time to construct roads funded with toll roads and express toll lanes versus implementing gas taxes. Also, because funds are taken upfront rather than waiting for gas taxes to be collected, road building and congestion reduction occurs much faster.

Even though toll roads are becoming more common and innovative worldwide, Toronto’s city council recently voted against a study for building toll lanes on the Don Valley Parkway.  This means that the issue won’t be brought up again for the next year, unless two-thirds of councilors agree to reopen the case.

As long as the city’s toll road plans remain on hiatus, and without other sources of funding in place, the TTC cannot expect to be a viable alternative to driving in Toronto.