Ending bridge tolls has come with a huge cost

Fraser River crossings now have more traffic and cost province millions each year

When Premier John Horgan kept his election promise to remove bridge tolls two years ago, he anticipated the result might well be a shift in traffic patterns.

“Many people have been travelling out of their way to avoid tolls because they simply cannot afford them,” said Horgan in killing the tolls effective Sept. 1, 2017. “Getting rid of tolls will shorten commute times and clear up other routes, so people can spend less time stuck in traffic and more time with their families.”

The latest numbers from the Transportation Ministry confirm that, with the tolls gone, the bridges have filled up.

Traffic increased by about a third on the Port Mann Bridge, from 112,000 vehicles every day in the last full year with tolls to 150,000 in the first full year free of them.

There was a big increase in traffic on the Golden Ears Bridge after it was freed of tolls. Travel topped out at 55,000 vehicles in 2018, up from less than 40,000 in the last full year before the tolls were taken off.

More traffic also means more congestion, particularly on the heavily travelled Port Mann.

Green Leader Andrew Weaver predicted as much in speaking against removal of the tolls back in 2018.

“Eliminating tolls will increase congestion in Metro Vancouver as more people turn to their cars,” said Horgan’s partner in power sharing. “Tolls are an excellent policy tool to manage transport demand. Transport demand management reduces pollution and emissions, alleviates congestion and helps pay for costly infrastructure.”

Not that Weaver actually expected Horgan to break his election promise to remove the tolls. He knew that wasn’t in the cards, given the role it played in helping the NDP wrest seats from the B.C. Liberals in communities south of the Fraser.

But he pegged the cost of getting rid of the tolls at more than $200 million a year, money better used on “health care, public education and social services.”

Since Weaver has proven to be right about the congestion, I wondered if he was also in the ballpark on the cost of Horgan’s decision to remove the tolls.

The cost of removing the tolls is politically sensitive, as I discovered when I put several questions in an email to the ministry of transportation and infrastructure. It took four days to get the information, and happily I was in no rush.

But the telling part was in the travels that the questions and answers made before the information was approved and delivered to me.

The electronic version of a paper trail indicates that the exchange was routed through the office of Transportation Minister Claire Trevena and to her deputy minister Grant Main.

He looped in deputy Finance Minister Lori Wanamaker and Heather Wood, the associate deputy minister in charge of the Treasury Board.

Also on the distribution list was the office of Premier John Horgan and the Government Communications and Public Engagement agency.

While I appreciate the attention given to my request, I believe the grand tour accorded to it suggests why reporters working on deadline can find it hard to get expedited answers to their questions.

In any event, given all those sign-offs from the highest levels of government, I have to assume that the information provided is of the take-it-to-the-bank variety. I’ll start with Golden Ears. The six-lane crossing of the Fraser River linking Langley to Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge was built and owned by TransLink, the regional transportation authority.

To get rid of the tolls, the province agreed to make up the difference in cash transfers to TransLink. As of Sept 30 of this year, those payments had totalled just under $122 million.

The $1.1-billion debt resulting from the construction of Golden Ears remains with TransLink, at least for now.

But in the case of the Port Mann crossing of the Fraser, the end of tolling meant that the bridge was no longer being supported by its own cash flow. As a result, $3.5 billion had to be added to the taxpayer-supported debt of the province, which the government now has to service. As of Sept. 30, the province has paid out $329 million in debt-servicing charges. It is also covering the maintenance cost of the bridge, there being no longer any tolling revenue to offset that as well.

The ministry reports $32 million for two years of maintenance and another $3 million to wind up the tolling authority and pay out contracts and severance.

So it cost the government an additional $486 million for just the first two years of Horgan’s decision to get rid of the tolls.

The figures supplied by the ministry further indicate that the continuing cost of interest and maintenance on the Port Mann and of payments for Golden Ears is running at about $19 million a month.

With another two years to go before the next scheduled provincial election, that would add a further $450 million or so to the tab.

On that estimation, the all-in cost to the province for the first four years of toll removal would work out to $939 million, which puts the annual cost in the same $200-million-plus ballpark as the Green leader’s estimate back in 2017.

So I could have saved a lot of trouble for all those high-powered civil servants by sparing them and just asking Andrew Weaver.

The latest numbers ... confirm that, with the tolls gone, the bridges have filled up.