A Thunderstorm of Charges
It’s a bitter day. It’s sleeting and snowing and blowing and thundering, just like Moscoe and his pundit bandwagon have been blowing and hurling hair-curling ideas at us for the last week or so. We have congestion, just like every other big city in the world. But our congestion is not on the order of London England’s or any of the Asian cities (pick one, any one) or New York’s, nor even the 905’s in places, yet we’re being bombarded by American ideas of tolls and English ideas of congestion charges. To make matters worse, while politicians bounce around ways to take more money out of our pockets, they have absolutely no intention, none, zippo, nada, to bring our transit systems up to the levels of London’s or New York’s or even Montreal’s. Where do they think all those people in those congesting cars are going to go? There is not enough subway capacity, the subways are not being expanded, there is only the Yonge parallel bus line to the Yonge subway — buses only run at night along Bloor-Danforth — and bus routes have not been restored to previous levels.
London can get away with a congestion charge because their roads, unlike ours, are truly horrendous morning, noon, and night; because they have a comprehensive Underground, unlike our puny inadequate 2-line system; because they have governments willing to force the developers to pay for subway expansion and to pay for part of it themselves. Even Margaret Thatcher, that champion of an unfettered free market, insisted that the developers (Canadian I might add) of Canary Wharf could only develop that dilapidated part of town if they funded a brand new Underground line, the Jubilee line. Imagine any Canadian government having the cajones to do that here? I can’t. Furthermore, the bus routes in London are so intertwined and at times parallel the underground lines, that you can always grab a bus if the Underground does not quite go where you want. Plus they have taxis everywhere, even if cab drivers give you the third degree before unlocking their doors. Tried to hail a cab in Toronto outside of the downtown core recently? You wait at least 10 minutes, if one ever happens to pass by, and then pay a small fortune for the privilege of being squished onto a fraying, sagging seat.
Talking about congestion charges and tolls only makes sense when taxes abound and public transit covers the city efficiently, allows people to get to their destination quickly and in relative comfort (which is why buses instead of subway expansion will never work because who wants to give up a warm car for a long wait in snow or hot humidity followed by a rattling swaying slow ride and a change or three?), and when the densest part of the city is served by a subway line not an overcrowded glacial streetcar ride.
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wow
I agree with you here once again. They seem to be addressing the issue by generating cash..that even if implimented will not provide them enough cash to fix the system.
Great
At this point, they’ve wasted so many decades that the cost to catch up will be astonomical. And the longer they wait, the higher the cost in dollars, but even worse the higher the cost in quality of life, lost productivity, wasting time commuting longer and longer, the deterioration of the city, and the impact eventually on the whole country. We’re already seeing it.
I saw an interesting news item last night about redoing the Gardiner over the rail lines. Cost: $1.6 billion. That’s just to fix one crumbling highway and to make the lakefront accessible again. As you said, their cash generation won’t be remotely adequate.