TO residents and 905ers debate tolls
Re Poll finds 70% support for tolls, Nov. 28 Of course you can get a 70-per-cent positive response to a question framed “should others pay for our infrastructure?”
Mayor John Tory has the capability to speak very quickly, but, listening carefully, you can hear him say “for decades, our city has failed to invest in transit, which is now insufficient and, as a consequence, our roads are clogged. It’s time for others to pay their fair share.”
You can also see him in photo ops, acknowledging federal and provincial commitments to pay two-thirds of Toronto transit infrastructure. So all of Ontario and every Canadian taxpayer has/will be invested in Toronto infrastructure.
Toronto residents pay the lowest municipal taxes in the province. Toronto looks like a very poor place to invest in new infrastructure, which the city will fail to invest in maintaining. Mike McLean, Oakville Get real Toronto! It is time to stop asking the GTA to support your financial shortcomings.
One need only check the numbers to see that Toronto taxpayers pay, on average, as much as 20-per-cent less in taxes on a property of similar value than we do in Oakville. Do we get an extra bang for our tax buck? Certainly not, and our federal/ provincial taxes continue to subsidize you.
Toronto politicians continue to resist raising taxes as long as they can succeed in getting others to pay the freight. A 10-percent increase in property taxes would certainly not cause Toronto property owners to opt out of ownership or move to the higher taxes of the suburbs. It would, however, go a long way toward solving the city’s current financial problem. Don Macmillan, Oakville Road tolls are a flat tax. The poorer a household, the more heavily it hits. A $2 toll per direction every workday is $1,000 per year. If Toronto councillors are at all concerned about the growing income inequality, road tolls should not be advocated. John Stillich, Mississauga I keep hearing remarks about 905ers using the roads but not paying taxes as the 416ers do when they use them to get to work.
Do these people ever think about how and where these commuters spend their money? They help business by buying lunches, staying in town for dinner and shopping downtown.
We 905ers do contribute to the city’ coffers. Kathleen Slater, Ajax One way to ease gridlock is to use the existing network of expressways and roads efficiently.
Cracking down on illegally parked cars is a good step but other measures are required to get traffic moving.
One measure could be educating drivers on the proper use of multi-lane roads. So many drivers cruise in the left lane, effectively creating congestion. When two vehicles travel head to head at the same speed in the right and left lanes, lines of cars quickly form behind them.
No matter how many transit lines and roads we build in the future, the roads will remain congested if drivers do not learn how to use them efficiently. Leszek Pisarek, Mississauga The real impact of John Tory’s road tolls is not so much the initial fees proposed; it’s the progressive increases over the years ahead.
For example, the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City opened to traffic in 1937, charging 50 cents per passenger vehicle. In 1980, the toll was raised to $1.50. In 1990, it was $3; in 2000, $4; in 2010, $8. It is now $15.
London Transport initiated a “charging zone” in 2003 of £5 per passenger vehicle. In 2005, the toll was raised to £8. In 2011, it was £10. It is now £11.5.
Should Tory muster the political support to impose toll fees, he will put his political future on the line, simply because no commuter can afford another tax — with no guarantee traffic congestion will be significantly reduced. Bruce H. Bryer, Toronto
“Road tolls are a flat tax. The poorer a household, the more heavily it hits. If Toronto councillors are at all concerned about the growing income inequality, road tolls should not be advocated.” JOHN STILLICH MISSISSAUGA
I would be more willing to accept road tolls if I didn’t see the continuing waste of municipal tax money.
Case in point: Last year, the city resurfaced a local major road in my neighbourhood. This year, it ripped up the road to change the water mains — a routine maintenance repair. Virtually all of last year’s work was thereby wasted, at a significant cost to taxpayers.
Furthermore, millions could be saved by freezing city wages for five years. The savings are right under the mayor’s and council’s noses. Dr. Peter Rozanec, Toronto I always assumed tolls are sometimes necessary to pay for a new road, but not roads that were built decades ago.
I thought the tax on gasoline, car licences, etc. was supposed to pay for the upkeep of our roads. Where does this money go? Sybil Fretz, Pickering Before the carless downtown elites get too happy that the evil motorist is being screwed again, they should realize that the increased off-highway traffic will result in a corresponding increase in death and injury for cyclists and pedestrians.
Traffic jams on the 401and 427 will be epic after the $2 thin end of the wedge becomes $5 in just a few years.
Only 40 per cent of revenue will be from 905ers. So 60 per cent will come from Torontonians. It is ironic that Scarborough motorists will be paying for the Scarborough subway.
But if a highway toll is to be implemented, I will happily go along with it when Toronto property taxes are increased to the same level as my 905 property taxes. Mike Saunders, Mississauga The people of Ontario paid for the Toronto highways. Somehow, the highways wound up belonging to the City of Toronto, which now wants to charge the people of Ontario to drive on them. Figures!
Meanwhile, if Toronto cut its bloated police force by 20 per cent, it would accomplish equivalent savings at no extra expense.
Or maybe this is just another scheme to get an increasingly unpopular provincial government to cough up additional subsidies to the city to avoid the whole proposition? C.R. (Ray) Luft, Mississauga So, let me get this straight: We who live in the 905, who already pay much higher property taxes than Toronto, will now have to pay for road tolls on the Gardiner Expressway and the DVP so that Toronto residents can continue to pay the lowest property taxes in the country.
Is this fair? Come on Toronto taxpayers, start paying your share and stop harbouring the blackmail threat of a Ford-like mayor if property taxes are raised. Ron and Beryl Simpson, Oakville This plan could possibly work, especially with relief for the Gardiner Expressway. With the number of east-west thoroughfares that traverse the entire city, east-west GTA traffic might be dispersed as everyone is not likely to be using the same route.
Roadways such as Hwy. 7, Steeles Ave., Finch Ave., Ellesmere-Wilson, Eglinton Ave., Bloor St., The Queensway and Lake Shore Blvd., would be viable alternates to the Gardiner. None of these routes has the impediment of streetcars. Also, traffic lights would have to be co-ordinated for an even traffic flow.
As for the Don Valley Parkway, there are various north-south routes. For example: Kennedy Rd., Warden Ave., Brimley Rd., Birchmount Rd., and McCowan Rd. in the east, and Jane St., Keele-Parkside and Bathurst St. in the west.
If these alternate routes are used by city residents in lieu of the two main routes, the 905ers who don’t contribute to our tax base will be left to make their contributions to help maintain our roads and improve our transit system. Warren Dalton, Scarborough Mayor John Tory invited those who think road tolls are not the answer on how to pay for roads and transit to submit their ideas. Here’s a few: Raise property taxes. Instead of building a one-stop subway to Scarborough, let the province build the fully funded 13-stop LRT to Scarborough.
Stop the mayoral legacy project called Smart Track, which is really Dumb Track.
Tear down the eastern end of the Gardener instead of spending billions to refurbish it.
Most important of all, elect a different mayor in 2018. Al Yolles, Toronto Finally a political leader in Toronto has the nerve to put his political capital where his mouth is. Successive mayors have cowardly ignored the problem, leaving Toronto’s transit and highway maintenance systems beyond inadequate.
Don’t be swayed by those who say these projects can be funded by cost efficiencies. Saying you can fund billions in transit and highway projects through city-hall efficiencies is like paying your rent with change you find in the sofa. John Dickie, Toronto