Proposed Toll on Gardner and DVP in Canada's second biggest city!

[Martin VanB]

The Toronto Owned roads are in great need of regular repair due to many people coming into the city to work. Yet the fees to repair the roads come from city of Toronto property taxes and special land transfer fees.

People in suburbs pay lower property taxes while Torontonians currently pay taxes to support the infrastructure to get suburbanites into the city. It makes sense that some of those costs be offset by people who use the roads.

Also, many people who live and work in the Toronto area take transit to their place of employment, not the highways in questions.

There is an element of fairness in the concept of a user fee.

 

[sitter_k]

People in suburbs pay lower property taxes .

Compared to what?

 

[RAM_Eh]

People in suburbs pay lower property taxes while Torontonians currently pay taxes to support the infrastructure to get suburbanites into the city. It makes sense that some of those costs be offset by people who use the roads.

.

I believe you are incorrect on this point. Comparable houses in Durham and Markham pay much more taxes than my house in Scarborough.
I am against tolls and believe the Toronto tax payers should demand more for the taxes they pay. The gravy train has returned to the municipal politics and the hogs are feeding at the trough again! Our Mayor has done nothing to cut costs.

All that said....tolls are inevitable and are part of the user fees that will be the future of municipal tax collection. Wait till you see the new roof tax Toronto is proposing!

 

[skhenry81]

I believe you are incorrect on this point. Comparable houses in Durham and Markham pay much more taxes than my house in Scarborough.
I am against tolls and believe the Toronto tax payers should demand more for the taxes they pay. The gravy train has returned to the municipal politics and the hogs are feeding at the trough again! Our Mayor has done nothing to cut costs.

All that said....tolls are inevitable and are part of the user fees that will be the future of municipal tax collection. Wait till you see the new roof tax Toronto is proposing!

Roof tax?

 

[RAM_Eh]

Roof tax?

Yes....wait for it!

 

[sitter_k]

Yes....wait for it!

Similar to property tax, but based on the size of the home foot print rather than value. So technically he kept his promise to keep property tax in line with inflation but created 5 new "revenue tools"

Roof tax?

 

[skhenry81]

Similar to property tax, but based on the size of the home foot print rather than value. So technically he kept his promise to keep property tax in line with inflation but created 5 new "revenue tools"

I'm in Brampton so the roof tax isn't going to bother me but tolls on The Gardiner most certainly will. Like most people I'm going to find my way around The Gardiner which will in turn cause congestion on city streets.

 

[Phillip L]

I took my first trip this summer with the Model S to the US. I went to Pittsburgh and across to Boston, then up to the Maritimes. I must have paid about a dozen or more tolls. People will get upset for a while then they will get used to it. Hah... the toll on the MacKay bridge in Halifax was supposed to be just long enough to pay for the bridge, then stop. It must be fifty years and counting at least, and they still have the toll.

 

[Hugh Mannity]

I took my first trip this summer with the Model S to the US. I went to Pittsburgh and across to Boston, then up to the Maritimes. I must have paid about a dozen or more tolls. People will get upset for a while then they will get used to it. Hah... the toll on the MacKay bridge in Halifax was supposed to be just long enough to pay for the bridge, then stop. It must be fifty years and counting at least, and they still have the toll.

Yeah sometimes they do and sometimes they don't honour that original statement. In BC we were all shocked when they removed the toll booths from the Coquihalla highway a couple years back after the tolls had paid for the highway construction in the 80's

 

[Canuck]

The Toronto Owned roads are in great need of regular repair due to many people coming into the city to work. Yet the fees to repair the roads come from city of Toronto property taxes and special land transfer fees.

Not true AT ALL.

People in suburbs pay lower property taxes while Torontonians currently pay taxes to support the infrastructure to get suburbanites into the city. It makes sense that some of those costs be offset by people who use the roads.

Again, not true. Please get your facts straight. Here's the facts for you:

Highlights

• Ontario motorists cover between 70 and 90 per cent of the costs of the road network through fees and fuel taxes.
• In the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, road users more than cover the costs of construction, maintenance and policing.
• Vehicle ownership and operating costs make up, by far, the largest portion of total costs for road users. However, they are paid directly by the motorists themselves.

The analysis focuses on light-duty vehicles, which cover automobiles up to 4.5 tonnes — cars, minivans, sport utility vehicles and light pickup trucks. Revenues included in the analysis included federal and provincial fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and tolls, but not general sales taxes. The Conference Board used three different approaches to estimate total road infrastructure costs (construction, major and regular maintenance and policing).

Province-wide, road-network related revenues from fuel taxes, licence fees and other sources totaled more than $7.5 billion annually between 2008 and 2010 (the latest year with available data). These revenues covered between 70 and 90 per cent of annual road costs, depending on the method used to calculate infrastructure expenditures.

Also, many people who live and work in the Toronto area take transit to their place of employment, not the highways in questions.

Right, and those taking transit are paying for the roads, right? NOT! Why not also mention the people who walk and ride bikes to work too, because they're just as irrelevant as those who take transit when it comes to paying for the roads. Fuel taxes are mainly paying for those roads and guess who is paying them? Motorists! (Well, except for the Tesla motorist.)

There is an element of fairness in the concept of a user fee.

No. Once you understand the TRUE FACTS, and not made up ones to suit your own agenda, you will understand that there is nothing fair about making people from the suburbs pay more by way of tolls to use the roads. It's not like a user fee to stop abuse of the medical system by people going to see a doctor for a common cold. There are families struggling to make ends meet who have to pay each way just to get to work and back in order to put food on the table, a roof over their heads, and cloths on their, and their children's backs.

And to some, that's not only okay, it's being called "fairness".

We've lost what it really means to be a Canadian and it's truly sad.

 

[skhenry81]

Not true AT ALL.



Again, not true. Please get your facts straight. Here's the facts for you:

Highlights

• Ontario motorists cover between 70 and 90 per cent of the costs of the road network through fees and fuel taxes.
• In the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, road users more than cover the costs of construction, maintenance and policing.
• Vehicle ownership and operating costs make up, by far, the largest portion of total costs for road users. However, they are paid directly by the motorists themselves.

The analysis focuses on light-duty vehicles, which cover automobiles up to 4.5 tonnes — cars, minivans, sport utility vehicles and light pickup trucks. Revenues included in the analysis included federal and provincial fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and tolls, but not general sales taxes. The Conference Board used three different approaches to estimate total road infrastructure costs (construction, major and regular maintenance and policing).

Province-wide, road-network related revenues from fuel taxes, licence fees and other sources totaled more than $7.5 billion annually between 2008 and 2010 (the latest year with available data). These revenues covered between 70 and 90 per cent of annual road costs, depending on the method used to calculate infrastructure expenditures.

Couldn't have laid out the facts any clearer.



Right, and those taking transit are paying for the roads, right? NOT! Why not also mention the people who walk and ride bikes to work too, because they're just as irrelevant as those who take transit when it comes to paying for the roads. Fuel taxes are mainly paying for those roads and guess who is paying them? Motorists! (Well, except for the Tesla motorist.)



No. Once you understand the TRUE FACTS, and not made up ones to suit your own agenda, you will understand that there is nothing fair about making people from the suburbs pay more by way of tolls to use the roads. It's not like a user fee to stop abuse of the medical system by people going to see a doctor for a common cold. There are families struggling to make ends meet who have to pay each way just to get to work and back in order to put food on the table, a roof over their heads, and cloths on their, and their children's backs.

And to some, that's not only okay, it's being called "fairness".

We've lost what it really means to be a Canadian and it's truly sad.

 

[TrevTremaine]

If what I've heard is true - the costs of repairs to the Gardiner has risen by a billion, that's a fairly hefty increase in costs. It's clear enough that there's a large number of people coming into the downtown core from outside of Toronto (east, west and north). Personally, I'm for the tolls, although I'm curious how much worse traffic will get on streets like Bloor, Lakeshore, and the Queensway. Signs of what is going to happen occur every time the Gardiner or DVP gets shut down for weekend maintenance or an accident - and it's not a pretty picture. Certainly, infrastructural maintenance and investment has been lagging for too long now, and this is the price to be paid. It's that or get used to Go Transit/TTC. I mean, we could have gone with Miller's idea of knocking down the Gardiner, but that truly was a terrible idea.

The other thing Toronto needs to do is stop adding traffic lights for every damned condo development and just perhaps remove a few of them along with better traffic light coordination.

 

[Phillip L]

The real problem is that for the cost of the toll one gets little value if one is still stuck on the Don Valley Parking Lot. With the 407 it was at least an advantage to pay the toll and get a faster route. Here we are talking about a pure tax grab with no improvement in service. Now if they were proposing a new highway with a toll, that would garner almost no opposition.

 

[Jaff]

Not true AT ALL.



Again, not true. Please get your facts straight. Here's the facts for you:

Highlights

• Ontario motorists cover between 70 and 90 per cent of the costs of the road network through fees and fuel taxes.
• In the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, road users more than cover the costs of construction, maintenance and policing.
• Vehicle ownership and operating costs make up, by far, the largest portion of total costs for road users. However, they are paid directly by the motorists themselves.

The analysis focuses on light-duty vehicles, which cover automobiles up to 4.5 tonnes — cars, minivans, sport utility vehicles and light pickup trucks. Revenues included in the analysis included federal and provincial fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and tolls, but not general sales taxes. The Conference Board used three different approaches to estimate total road infrastructure costs (construction, major and regular maintenance and policing).

Province-wide, road-network related revenues from fuel taxes, licence fees and other sources totaled more than $7.5 billion annually between 2008 and 2010 (the latest year with available data). These revenues covered between 70 and 90 per cent of annual road costs, depending on the method used to calculate infrastructure expenditures.



Right, and those taking transit are paying for the roads, right? NOT! Why not also mention the people who walk and ride bikes to work too, because they're just as irrelevant as those who take transit when it comes to paying for the roads. Fuel taxes are mainly paying for those roads and guess who is paying them? Motorists! (Well, except for the Tesla motorist.)



No. Once you understand the TRUE FACTS, and not made up ones to suit your own agenda, you will understand that there is nothing fair about making people from the suburbs pay more by way of tolls to use the roads. It's not like a user fee to stop abuse of the medical system by people going to see a doctor for a common cold. There are families struggling to make ends meet who have to pay each way just to get to work and back in order to put food on the table, a roof over their heads, and cloths on their, and their children's backs.

And to some, that's not only okay, it's being called "fairness".

We've lost what it really means to be a Canadian and it's truly sad.

I wonder what Mayor Tory would say after reading this?

 

[DMC-Orangeville]

@Canuck Nice post

One line you didn't highlight, though was this: "However, local governments —which own and maintain a large part of the infrastructure— collect a relatively small portion of the revenues related to road use."

I read that as the "Feds" are pocketing all of the fuel taxes. Go after them Tory.........

 

[sitter_k]

Not true AT ALL.



Again, not true. Please get your facts straight. Here's the facts for you:

Highlights

• Ontario motorists cover between 70 and 90 per cent of the costs of the road network through fees and fuel taxes.
• In the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, road users more than cover the costs of construction, maintenance and policing.
• Vehicle ownership and operating costs make up, by far, the largest portion of total costs for road users. However, they are paid directly by the motorists themselves.

The analysis focuses on light-duty vehicles, which cover automobiles up to 4.5 tonnes — cars, minivans, sport utility vehicles and light pickup trucks. Revenues included in the analysis included federal and provincial fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and tolls, but not general sales taxes. The Conference Board used three different approaches to estimate total road infrastructure costs (construction, major and regular maintenance and policing).

Province-wide, road-network related revenues from fuel taxes, licence fees and other sources totaled more than $7.5 billion annually between 2008 and 2010 (the latest year with available data). These revenues covered between 70 and 90 per cent of annual road costs, depending on the method used to calculate infrastructure expenditures.



Right, and those taking transit are paying for the roads, right? NOT! Why not also mention the people who walk and ride bikes to work too, because they're just as irrelevant as those who take transit when it comes to paying for the roads. Fuel taxes are mainly paying for those roads and guess who is paying them? Motorists! (Well, except for the Tesla motorist.)



No. Once you understand the TRUE FACTS, and not made up ones to suit your own agenda, you will understand that there is nothing fair about making people from the suburbs pay more by way of tolls to use the roads. It's not like a user fee to stop abuse of the medical system by people going to see a doctor for a common cold. There are families struggling to make ends meet who have to pay each way just to get to work and back in order to put food on the table, a roof over their heads, and cloths on their, and their children's backs.

And to some, that's not only okay, it's being called "fairness".

We've lost what it really means to be a Canadian and it's truly sad.

He's left this conversation long ago. Lol

 

[mknox]

Why should the ratepayers of Toronto subsidize infrastructure for those who live in the rest of the GTA? A toll on either highway is not a penalty, it is fairness. And in the name of inherent scarcity, the right economic tool for the job to fund transit and combat congestion.

Remember that the folks who commute into Toronto are working for companies that pay a lot of taxes to the city. Without those employees, the companies may not want to even be in Toronto. For the life of me, I don't know why more big companies don't move out of the downtown core. There is no real point in being there, and all it does is create huge congestion issues like we are discussing.

I don't like the idea of these tolls simply because the taxpayers have already paid for the roads in the first place, and already pay for maintenance in the form of gas taxes and such. Kinda like paying off your mortgage, then the bank wants to charge you a user fee to live in the house you've already paid for.

 

[sitter_k]

I took my first trip this summer with the Model S to the US. I went to Pittsburgh and across to Boston, then up to the Maritimes. I must have paid about a dozen or more tolls. People will get upset for a while then they will get used to it. Hah... the toll on the MacKay bridge in Halifax was supposed to be just long enough to pay for the bridge, then stop. It must be fifty years and counting at least, and they still have the toll.

There is a much different feeling when paying a toll or fee for something new or improved rather than being charged for something that used to bee at no cost. That being said I'm in the I'll just stick it up dept. As you said most people will be pissed but will just take it. Again Tory has made it Toronto vs. Others, Urban vs. Suburbs, he knows where the votes are.

 

[Canuck]

Again Tory has made it Toronto vs. Others, Urban vs. Suburbs, he knows where the votes are.

"I believe that a toll system is the fairest way to go because it allows us to build the transit and roads we need in order to fix the traffic with the least amount of impact on our residents," he said.

Nice FU to everyone outside of Toronto, Mayor Tory.

The people of Toronto sure know how to pick Mayors. Look at the upstanding, moral and ethical person they picked in Rob Ford. They sure know a winner when they see it. I guess when you live in the centre of the universe you're blinded by the light.

And you're right: the US vs. THEM small minded mentality wins out in Toronto politics, just like it did in down south with PE Trump.

It's not the Canada I grew up in, but it is the Canada of the future, unfortunately.

 

[sitter_k]

"I believe that a toll system is the fairest way to go because it allows us to build the transit and roads we need in order to fix the traffic with the least amount of impact on our residents," he said.

Nice FU to everyone outside of Toronto, Mayor Tory.

The people of Toronto sure know how to pick Mayors. Look at the upstanding, moral and ethical person they picked in Rob Ford. They sure know a winner when they see it. I guess when you live in the centre of the universe you're blinded by the light.

And you're right: the US vs. THEM small minded mentality wins out in Toronto politics, just like it did in down south with PE Trump.

It's not the Canada I grew up in, but it is the Canada of the future, unfortunately.

"I believe that a toll system is the fairest way to go because it allows us to build the transit and roads we need in order to fix the traffic with the least amount of impact on our residents," he said.

Nice FU to everyone outside of Toronto, Mayor Tory.

The people of Toronto sure know how to pick Mayors. Look at the upstanding, moral and ethical person they picked in Rob Ford. They sure know a winner when they see it. I guess when you live in the centre of the universe you're blinded by the light.

And you're right: the US vs. THEM small minded mentality wins out in Toronto politics, just like it did in down south with PE Trump.

It's not the Canada I grew up in, but it is the Canada of the future, unfortunately.

Your other choices were George Smitherman, who managed to mind the provincial purse strings so well, and Olivia Chow who is so left she would make Che Guevara want to become more centrist. I'd pick Ford and Tory any day.

But yeah while you can't make everyone happy Tory is using social divide for this issue. The unfortunate thing is one side cannot vote.