Toll lanes ‘training pants for road users’

Toronto road pricing expert Bern Grush calls high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes “training pants for road users.”

They can help manage traffic and they can change the way people think about driving.

“It’s a way for people to start understanding that paying for roads makes sense,” says Grush of Applied Telemetrics.

What HOT lanes won’t do, he says, is pay for Metrolinx’s Big Move regional transportation plan, estimated to require a $2-billion annual investment in public transit improvements to reduce Toronto-area gridlock.

Finance Minister Charles Sousa announced in Thursday’s provincial budget that high occupancy vehicle lanes will more than double around the region. He offered no details, however, on where or when they will be installed.

Sousa said HOT lanes could raise between $200 million and $300 million. An earlier report on revenue tools for Metrolinx suggested they could raise $250 million annually by 2020. Revenue for existing HOV lanes is about $25 million annually, said a Metrolinx spokeswoman.

Here’s how HOT lanes work: cars carrying more than one person can still access the HOV lanes for free. But single-occupant cars can also use those lanes in exchange for paying a toll.

The flaw in Ontario’s plan, says Grush is that, with the population expected to grow significantly in the next 20 years, there won’t be enough lane space in the HOV lanes to make them attractive. To make money and manage congestion, he says, the free use of HOT lanes should be confined to cars carrying at least three people, instead of the current rule that allows two.

Ontario government statistics show there is car capacity in existing HOV lanes on the QEW, and highways 404 and 403. The eastbound 403 carries about 5,750 cars per hour in regular lanes in the morning rush. The HOV lane carries 1,100.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath disparaged the HOT lanes as “Lexus lanes,” available only to those who can afford to pay.

“The one thing (in the budget) that’s supposed to be about transit isn’t really about transit. It discourages people from taking transit and it creates Lexus lanes in the province,” she said.