Dear Mayors: Road pricing is dead on arrival
With all the talk of the impending Port Mann tolls, the concept of fair tolling has been hitting the airwaves recently. This alternative would have $1 tolls on all the bridges instead of $3 tolls on two. While it is by no means perfectly equitable, it is certainly a large improvement over the current policy which promises to divert traffic, and charge some residents upwards of $1500 a year.
However, some are calling for a more high tech solution, with the abolishment of bridge tolls and the introduction of road pricing. This idea has some local Mayors enthused, including Dianne Watts and Peter Fassbender, as it promises to ensure full equity among the region’s drivers. Even former councillor and blogging guru Gordon Price has become an advocate of such a system. Theoretically, under a regional road pricing scheme, cars would be billed by distance, with variable charge rates based on time and route – for example, a higher charge at rush hour on Hwy 99.
However, in pursuing the idealistic option, they’ve lost sight of its implementability. Comprehensive road pricing schemes such as this do not exist – anywhere. A proposal to develop such a system in Oregon wound up in the trash bin. The simple reason? It would require a GPS tracking device to be installed in all private vehicles.
For the system to function, everyone would need to participate. There would be no choice to opt-in. While such a system might fly in Britain, Vancouverites are already on edge about the intrusion of CCTV in public space. Even if it could be designed to make your route information anonymous, or discarded at the end of every day, it is still a non-starter. We are much too averse to anything bordering on Big Brother, and this, dear Mayors, is ringing the alarm bell.
It is for this precise reason that the Mayors need to snap back to reality and focus on the pragmatic approach. The only option we have to improve the status quo is to pursue comprehensive fair tolling on all major crossings.
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Clearly you have not done your homework. A road tolling system has been in use on the highways east of Chicago to Boston for more than 20 years and it works very well. At every exit there is a toll booth where there is either a transponder reader or for tourists a lane to pay. Same thing can be done here very easily.
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That only works on highways. How does it work within the city though? Can you toll every road? What about Kingsway? Broadway? Etc. There’s a diference between tolling highways, which is done throughout the world already, and tolling roads other than highways which is what the Mayors want.
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As to the actual article, I think what is missing is the underlining facts. The only reason we’re hearing the Mayors now grasp at alternatives is because of 1 thing, the provincial government’s lack of coming up with an actual solution once and for all.
It requires political cojones unfortunately and the Liberals (and NDP i’d imagine if they were in power) aren’t willing to come up with a global funding scheme for Translink that everyone contributes to. Instead we get gas taxes that when gas usage reduces or people start buying gas in the Fraser Valley/US, drop like a rock. Or we get property tax which isn’t evenly distributed and more often than not goes into general revenue. Or we get tolls on each individual project that are completely different from each other (GEB vs Port Mann, different prices, structures, companies, etc.). You name it. It’s all fragmented, it’s all over the map, and it is unsustainable.
So the Mayor’s are trying to do the province’s job and I think the real story should be, wake up Liberals and NDP, and do your job when it comes to Translink and our roads/transit infrastructure.
Come up with 1 long term solution and implement the darned thing.
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Hi paul,
You seem to be in the know about civic issues, any idea why Sea to Sky wasn’t tolled or why the new Pitt River bridge hasn’t been tolled?
Seems like Translink is picking on folks south of the Fraser.
Beedude.
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