Vancouver Sun

READY TO DRIVE CHANGE

Urban planner Daniel Firth, the new executive director of TransLink’s mobility pricing independen­t commission, is working on putting a price tag on how we get around.

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Vancouveri­tes may find it surprising that people could come to embrace the idea of paying a tax to drive downtown, Daniel Firth says, but he’s seen it happen in a city he says is similar in key ways to Vancouver.

The urban planner was named this week as executive director of TransLink’s mobility pricing independen­t commission, which starts work this month on creating recommenda­tions for new ways of pricing how we get around the region.

Firth, a 44-year-old Englishman, arrived in Vancouver last month from Stockholm, where he worked for the past decade. During that period, he oversaw the implementa­tion of a congestion charge, specifical­ly a tax on vehicles entering the city centre, for the fast-growing Swedish capital. The system eventually attracted widespread public approval and succeeded in reducing traffic, improving accessibil­ity and helping the environmen­t. Earlier, Firth lived and worked in London, England, where he also worked on the introducti­on and operation of that city’s congestion charge.

During a presentati­on last month, Firth outlined some of the things he learned through watching the implementa­tion of congestion pricing in both cities.

“The politics behind this is really, really, really hard,” he said. “I personally think the best argument is about efficiency . ... It’s about saying ‘If you like driving a car in the city, if you think cars are an important part of the transporta­tion makeup, then you need to be campaignin­g for congestion pricing.’ ”

Firth spoke Friday with Postmedia in his first interview since taking on his new job.

Q One key question Metro Vancouver residents will want to ask is how much will a new mobility pricing system cost for average commuters?

A We’re putting the cart before the horse. This is what we’re going to spend the next 10 months or so looking at. What we really need to look at is what is mobility costing today for different people? We’re paying in all kinds of ways — people who are driving today are paying through gas taxes, depreciati­on insurance, the cost of their time sitting stuck in traffic . ... There’s all kinds of costs we’re already putting on our mobility, so we need to start by looking at what are those, and how are those being borne by different kinds of people throughout our region?

We’re all paying for our mobility now, but we’re doing it in ways that just aren’t transparen­t to us.

Q At this week’s announceme­nt for the commission, you told the media you are “trying to find a proposal that creates as many winners as possible.” Is it inevitable that a new mobility pricing system will create some losers, as well as winners?

A I come back to the point that there are some people who are losing out today. There are some people who are absolutely losers from the way we are paying for mobility today. We’re trying to understand which people those are, and trying to make sure the costs of different kinds of mobility are borne in a way that is more equitable and more reasonable. I can understand why people focus on costs. What I’m hearing very clearly from lots of people in the region is there’s a real concern about affordabil­ity in this region, and I’m very well aware of that. ... I think what we need to talk about also is other kinds of costs, and that’s our time and we’re all of us losing a lot of time sitting in traffic.

Q Would Vancouveri­tes be surprised to hear the example of Stockholm, where congestion pricing was a pilot project before going to a referendum and eventually gaining widespread public support?

A I think people do find it surprising, but if you were there and lived through it, it’s less surprising, because you could see the difference. We did loads of monitoring work, and we measured, and we had all kinds of fancy graphs, and pages and pages of traffic monitoring and measuremen­ts, and we actually didn’t need it. Because people could see with their own eyes. Their journey that was really unpredicta­ble, or really unpleasant, really stressful, suddenly was much easier. And the big winners of the congestion charging scheme in Stockholm were people who drive.

Q Are there any key difference­s between Vancouver and the cities where you previously worked, London and Stockholm?

A Both London and Stockholm are very mono-centric regions, so there’s a downtown core and a very high proportion of the jobs are there and people are commuting to and from the downtown . ... Vancouver is a very strongly poly-centric region, there’s lots of downtowns or regional centres — I’m thinking of Metrotown, central Surrey, downtown Vancouver. And that means the transporta­tion patterns in Vancouver are much more complex.

This interview has been edited and condensed. dfumano@postmedia.com twitter.com/fumano

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JASON PAYNE
 ?? JASON PAYNE ?? Daniel Firth, the executive director of TransLink’s mobility pricing independen­t commission, seen in New Westminste­r on Friday, says he and his team will be examining the issue for the next 10 months.
JASON PAYNE Daniel Firth, the executive director of TransLink’s mobility pricing independen­t commission, seen in New Westminste­r on Friday, says he and his team will be examining the issue for the next 10 months.

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