Use smart tolls for the new Champlain Bridge

It came as no surprise that the provincial government and the mayors of Montreal and South Shore municipalities rose in common front against tolls on the new Champlain Bridge.

This is understandable in that it is easy for them, since they will not be directly footing the bill for the new structure, currently pegged at $5 billion. It is also politically popular, and in the electoral interests of the Marois government, which will be counting heavily on South Shore votes in the election likely to come in the new year.

Another thing that makes it easy for them is that it is not their call to make. The hard de- cision in this case falls to the federal government, which has jurisdiction over the bridge. And that government has made its position clear: There will be tolls.

As it is, the greater part of the cost will be borne by Canadian taxpayers, who will never use the bridge. This is not unfair. The general population derives a benefit from the existing structure, in that, as the country’s busiest bridge over which much commerce flows, it is vital to the health of the national economy.

But it is also not unfair to expect users to pay extra, in that they get both the general benefit of economic fallout from the structure and the more specific benefit of using it to conveniently cross the river.

The debate therefore should not be about whether or not there should be tolls, but structuring the user’s differential contribution in such a way as to maximize benefits and minimize downsides.

The answer to that lies in a system of differentiated tolls, or so-called smart tolls. These are not the tolls of yore, whereby cars had to slow to a crawl so drivers could deposit coins in receptacles at toll booths. Today’s technology allows cars to be electronically monitored and drivers subsequently billed.

The tolls can vary according to the time of day, with the highest prices imposed at peak traffic hours and lowest prices — or no charge at all — at other times. Costs can also vary according to the size of vehicles. Such tolling not only generates vital revenue for infrastructure construction and maintenance, but tends to reduce congestion as well, by spreading out rush-hour traffic into low-price or nocharge hours of the day. Removing tolls in the evenings and on weekends would assuage the current fear that people on one side of the river would be dissuaded from crossing over to the other for shopping or entertainment.

User-pay models are already in force at Canadian airports, where added airport-maintenance fees are embedded in the cost of airline tickets, and have resulted in substantially improved airport facilities. The system recognizes that people who travel frequently by air should pay somewhat more to financially support airports than people who don’t.

Rather than stand adamantly against tolls for the new Champlain Bridge, elected officials currently opposed would best serve their constituents by giving more serious consideration to smarter pricing options — not just with bridges, but inevitably with roads and public services more generally.