Cost of mobility pricing still unclear
METRO VANCOUVER: Mayors’ proposals will have to fit into province’s ‘affordability’ plan, Horgan says
Premier John Horgan has warned Metro Vancouver’s mayors that any decongestion charges proposed for the region will not be rubber-stamped by his government.
“I want to see what they come back with and how it fits into our affordability plan for British Columbians,” Horgan told reporters Tuesday during a media availability in Victoria. “I don’t want to see inconsistent policies come forward from other jurisdictions. We’ll have to work, of course, with the Mayors’ Council … We haven’t spoken directly on this initiative, but we will in the future.”
However, at this point the cost of a mobility pricing scheme — whether that’s the amount it’s expected to raise each year or how much a driver could end up paying — is unclear, and a report released this week by the independent commission studying the proposal is silent on the topic.
The commission’s report narrows mobility pricing options for the region down to two: Congestion point charges, which involve tolling drivers when they pass a certain point or location, and distance-based charges that vary by time and location. It has not considered how much drivers would be charged at a congestion point or the cost per kilometre.
“The commission’s mandate is to study the ways congestion could be reduced, but the commission has not been given a revenue target,” commission chair Allan Seckel said.
TransLink spokesperson Jill Drews confirmed there is currently “no definitive revenue target for regional mobility pricing,” though TransLink and the mayors have asked the commission to outline the near- and long-term revenue potential of different options and how they can optimize current revenue streams, like fuel and parking taxes.
Mobility pricing is talked about as a way to provide regional funding for the third phase of a 10-year plan put forward by the region’s mayors to improve the transit system. That phase would start to be implemented in 2020.
Gordon Price, a fellow with the Simon Fraser University Centre for Dialogue and former director of the school’s City Program, said he’s not surprised that the commission hasn’t been given a firm dollar figure to work with or recommended fee amounts.
“If the intent of the commission is to, as we like to say in the academic biz, have the discussion, create the dialogue, I can’t think of a faster way to kill it than to download some real tough political questions,” Price said.
While the report didn’t provide any idea of what mobility pricing might cost for Metro Vancouver residents, it did give some examples of what’s been done in other cities, including Singapore, London, Stockholm, Milan and Gothenburg, Sweden.
For instance, Stockholm has charging points that form a zone around the city and vehicles pay a tax for every entry and exit on weekdays between 6:30 a.m. and 6:29 p.m. The tax for the central city varies from $1.70 to $5.30 (in Canadian dollars) depending on time of day, and for the city’s ring road the cost is between $1.70 and $4.50. The maximum daily charge per vehicle is $15.90. The tax raises about $150 million per year.
Kris Sims, B.C. director for Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said she is concerned that no one has specified how much mobility pricing is expected to cost.
“They will probably leave that to the last minute and give it to politicians,” said Sims.
Sims said Lower Mainland residents are already “pinched and stretched.”
“A lot of people just don’t have anything more to give,” she said.
Her opinion is that the costs should be laid out clearly and the issue sent to referendum or plebiscite, like the proposed transit sales tax in 2015, even though that’s no longer required by the provincial government.
“If you want more money from commuters, from motorists, ask them,” she said.