Concept of charging drivers to reduce congestion still alive
Despite Metro Vancouver mayors’ muted response to a report they commissioned outlining options for charging drivers to reduce traffic congestion, the idea is not necessarily dead.
That is even though Premier John Horgan’s B.C. government, that would have to approve any new tax scheme, largely met the report with silence.
But the report itself notes this is the first phase of a feasibility study and work will be needed to develop the high-level decongestion charging concepts introduced last week.
This work, including assessing affordability and increasing the public’s understanding of the broad consequences and costs of congestion, will need to be completed before introducing any new pricing system, said TransLink.
Two schemes were highlighted in the 378-page report from the Mobility Pricing Independent Commission: a congestion point pricing system based largely at bridges and a system that charges for distance travelled.
Under the two systems drivers could be paying as much as $3 to $8 per day to travel in Metro Vancouver, which appeared to have a chilling effect on mayors’ enthusiasm for the idea.
However, Robin Lindsey, a professor and expert in traffic congestion and road pricing at the Sauder School of Business at the University of B.C., said it took as much as 20 years to successfully implement decongestion pricing in London and in Sweden, in Stockholm and Gothenburg.
Starting with concepts introduced by transportation planners and engineers, even after ideas were initially voted down, it built a body of work, Lindsey said Monday.
“Finally they got something which passed the political hurdles and it worked,” said Lindsey, who has read the commission’s report.
He agreed with the commission it was too early to make a definitive decision because it’s a tremendously complex problem, he said. “The stakes are very high. You implement some kind of pricing technology that could be in place for people’s lifetimes. It could be in place for the rest of the century.”
Joy MacPhail, vice-chair of the commission and a former NDP cabinet minister, declined Monday to discuss the report.
Last Thursday, a joint meeting of TransLink’s Mayors’ Council and board of directors received the mobility pricing report. Lost in the attention on costs to drivers was that charging systems could bring in net revenues of anywhere between $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion.
That revenue could be used to reduce or eliminate, for example, the Metro Vancouver portion of the B.C. fuel tax that brings in about $400 million a year, noted Marc Lee, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Lee said he doesn’t expect much further discussion on the congestion charge ideas until after this year’s November municipal elections. “Probably none of them (the mayors) want to be way out there on this one,” said Lee.
The urgency to deal with congestion — and generate more funding — may also have been reduced by recent funding arrangements between B.C. and Metro Vancouver to help build projects such as light rail in Surrey, added Lee.
District of North Vancouver mayor Richard Walton, who is vice-chair of TransLink’s Mayors’ Council, said a larger contextual discussion needs to occur around congestion charges.
Walton, who has visited Stockholm to examine their system, said the Swedes told him adamantly that it was about saving time by using pricing to shift congestion from peak periods.
“The question of course is, if everybody is saying this isn’t going to fly, that’s their right. But at this point what is the solution for the next million people coming ?” asked Walton.
In a written response, TransLink spokeswoman Jill Drew said Metro Vancouver cannot build its way out of congestion, and mobility pricing is a tool the region could use to address congestion. The next phase of study could take two years, said Drew. “It’s vital we determine how to mitigate the concerns raised by the public before any decision is made,” she said.