Cash cow Port Mann toll will be hard to scrap

VICTORIA

Among the political time bombs ticking away inside this week’s B. C. budget was the service plan for the government- owned corporation that is in charge of completing, then tolling the new Port Mann Bridge.

Completion should count on the good news side of the ledger for the B. C. Liberals. Premier Christy Clark scored one favourable media hit off the project when she presided at the halfway point on construction of the 10- lane crossing last summer.

She can be expected to turn up again when the finished bridge goes into operation toward the end of this year.

The tolling is another matter. Not much cause for celebration there, particularly among the many commuters who’ll find themselves paying $ 3 each way, $ 30 per week, in excess of $ 1,400 a year just to get to and from work.

But there it was in this week’s service plan for the Transportation Investment Corporation: “The target date for implementation of the tolling system and associated operations is December 2012.”

Just in time for Christmas, too. And, not incidentally, in time to generate a major controversy in Port Mann- dependent communities in the runup to the May 2013 provincial election.

The issue has been simmering ever since the Liberals announced that the $ 3.3- billion project to twin the bridge and widen adjacent stretches of Highway 1 would be financed with tolls.

It continues to build, as when Clark announced recently that there would be no revisiting of the policy that dictated tolls on the Port Mann ( because it is a new crossing and there are other routes to get across the river) but not on existing bridges or the new Sea to Sky Highway.

“Premier Christy Clark has lost thousands of votes south of the Fraser, by stating on Monday that there will be no revisiting of the policy on bridge tolling,” fumed the Langley Times in a Feb. 15 editorial. “Her South Fraser MLAS have been silent on this policy as well, which is surprising, as it may be a major factor in their electoral fortunes next year. Regular users of Highway 1 from as far east as Chilliwack will be affected by this inequitable policy, and the results in the pending Chilliwack- Hope byelection may prove to Clark that Fraser Valley voters don’t believe in being treated unfairly.”

But it’s one thing to contemplate the threat of tolling, another to actually start paying the tab. And the government intends to hit the ground running with its new tolling regime.

Target revenues for the first four months of operation are a hefty $ 49 million. For the first full year they expect to collect $ 185 million, climbing to $ 208 million in the second or more than half a million dollars a day.

That’s a lot of tolls. The starting rate is $ 3 each way for vehicles, $ 6 for small trucks, $ 9 for larger ones. Discounts of 25 per cent for high- occupancy vehicles at peak times. Larger commercial vehicles will get a 50- per- cent cut if they cross overnight. There’s also an escalator clause that will ensure the tolls keep pace with inflation.

But even with that rich cash flow, the service plan says that the bridge will be a money loser initially. The tolling revenue has to cover construction, debt retirement, operations, collections and ongoing maintenance of both the bridge and adjacent stretches of Highway 1.

The combined operating loss for the first three years is projected to be $ 125 million. Not until year six will the breakeven point be reached. Another 35 years will pass before the cumulative tolling revenues — $ 8 billion to $ 10 billion based on current projections — are expected to offset the full project and carrying costs.

Only then — 2052, give or take a year — will the tolls be retired. You’ll pay. Your kids will pay. Your grandkids will pay.

Still those very large dollar figures should give pause to anyone who would idly propose scrapping the tolls without a plausible plan for finding the money elsewhere.

For starters, the full project borrowing would then have to be added to the taxpayer- supported debt of the province, boosting it to almost 20 per cent of gross domestic product, the highest level in years.

Moreover, with the Transportation Investment Corporation deprived of any tolling revenue, that estimated $ 3.3- billion debt would have to be serviced and repaid out of general provincial revenues, along with the maintenance and operating costs of the highway and bridge.

Not likely would the New Democrats commit those kinds of dollars, not when they’re struggling to put together an election platform that is both ( in their words) “modest” and “fully costed.”

The Conservatives, who’ve opposed tolls in the past, might be inclined to do so again. But it would be hard to square with their tirade against the excessive borrowing under the B. C. Liberals, since in this case the tolls will fully offset the debt.

A fairer approach would replace the toll on the one bridge with a smaller user fee on all routes in and out of the city. But I’ve not heard that suggestion from any of the parties.