So long tolls, hello mobility pricing?
Government’s road to good intentions may be paved with yet another driving charge
British Columbia’s new NDP government will scrap tolls on the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges on Friday, and motorists should enjoy the free ride while it lasts.
That’s because a commission is investigating mobility pricing options for transportation, which could include bridge tolls and other road usage fees.
The NDP government is now championing the phrase “Toll Free B.C.” Transportation Minister Claire Trevena denied in an interview last week that this slogan would be temporary given the work of the mobility commission. “What the mayors are looking at is mobility pricing, which is not tolling,” she told Postmedia News.
But Gordon Price, an expert on all things urban, said motorists will, of course, be paying for road infrastructure again under any mobility pricing system. A new system would likely look very different, though, and could be more equitable than merely taxing bridge users south of the Fraser Valley.
There are also other inequities in the local transportation system, Price noted, such as paying for ferries and transit. “Is a Compass Card really different from a TReO card?” asked Price, a former Vancouver city councillor and former director of the Simon Fraser University City Program.
The key will be to find a solution that doesn’t politically alienate drivers (a.k.a. voters), who have come to expect that roads are an essential service funded by governments. “We have been raised on the free road. It is called a ‘freeway’ for a reason,” Price quipped.
Five things to know about mobility pricing.
Fairness to all
TransLink’s Mobility Pricing Independent Commission will examine how to more fairly price roads and bridges in Metro Vancouver, and better coordinate the pricing of all transportation services, including transit fares, bridge tolls, and road usage charges. By spring 2018, TransLink and the region’s mayors are to receive the commission’s recommendations.
Charging by road
A program at the SFU Centre for Dialogue analyzed a user fee called ‘road pricing,’ which can reduce congestion and raise revenue by charging motorists based on where and when they drive. The scope of these fees can vary. The most basic is a “corridor theme,” which charges a vehicle for using a certain road or bridge. Examples of this are the tolls charged on Highway 407 in Toronto and the nearly-expired ones for the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges.
Charging by area
London and Singapore have adopted the farther-reaching “area scheme” system, which charges for driving into a certain section of a city. In London, motorists are charged 11.50 pounds to go downtown between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday to Friday. Critics, though, have raised privacy, cost and equity concerns about this model.
Charging by distance
A full-network pricing scheme takes the concept one step further by charging a fee for the use of roads over an entire transportation area, often based on the distance travelled. Oregon launched the US’s first road usage charge in 2015, and participation is voluntary. The system allows drivers to pay fees based on the miles they travel, which the state argues “spreads the cost fairly among Oregonians using the roads.” It is hoped this will motivate some drivers to use transit more often.
Pay up or else
Even though B.C. will be “toll free” on Sept. 1, if you cross one of the bridges at 11:55 p.m. on Aug. 31 you will still need to pay up. The NDP will keep a reduced staff at its collection agency to ensure you pay all your outstanding tolls. “If you want to renew your driver’s licence, which is an annual undertaking, you have to make sure you fulfil your commitments to paying the tolls that you’ve incurred over the past year,” Premier John Horgan said last week.