A slightly better idea than a lottery. That, and other of my comments in a News1130 interview:
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – One way or another, you will be paying tolls on more of Metro Vancouver’s major routes in the near future. But is tolling the only option to help pay for new infrastructure?
The idea of using a lottery to fund roads, bridges and transit has been floated before, but a former TransLink board member who now lectures on urban issues doesn’t like it.
“It’s only a slightly better idea than a bake sale,” says Gordon Price, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program. “Actually I’d tend to go with the bake sale before a lottery.”
He feels a lottery to benefit TransLink would trivialize an important issue.
“There can’t be anything much more important than transportation; it is so embedded with our way of life, our economy, everything about living in Vancouver. To put it in that category, ‘Gee we need to fund it with a lottery,’ suggests we don’t take it seriously and that we are not serious,” he argues.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts has called for regional tolling of Metro Vancouver bridges and tunnels to help pay for infrastructure and Price believes she has started down the right road.
“She gets it on the table as a question of equity, that we have to think about how we fund transit on a regional basis. However, it does run into ‘fairness’ problems. South of the Fraser makes the best case — it is simply not tenable to toll all the bridges that go into Surrey or south of the Fraser without having to bear the burden,” says Price.
He backs the idea of road pricing — paying for the distance you drive — as an equitable way to fund transit and infrastructure. But with many News1130 listeners speaking out against tolls of any kind, are tax hikes a better option?
“Really, what you’re asking is if it should be invisible,” says Price.
“You could make a really strong case that it’s better for us to see it because it does affect our behaviour. However, any politician knows that is where they’re going to get into trouble. It might be the best way to do it because people know they’re getting value for what they’re spending and they can see that. But as we saw with the HST, people really don’t like visible taxes,” he explains.
Can you find a balance?
Price says yes, TransLink funding can be fairly spread out with some tolling and and some hikes in taxes. The trick for politicians is keeping voters happy about it.
I would like to see some numbers on what the funding issue is. As far as I can tell, as far as TransLink is concerned, motorists more than pay their way. TransLink collects about $300 million per year in gas taxes and spends about $100 million per year on the Major Road Network (unless I’m mis-reading their financial statements). It seems like one needs to look at other levels of government – such as the provincial level and city level – in order to get a more complete picture.
“He backs the idea of road pricing — paying for the distance you drive — as an equitable way to fund transit and infrastructure”
Just like a university idealogue.
Let us rephrase what he ‘backs’ in clear terms.
Road pricing, in practice, is the installation of a GPS tracking device on EVERY car so that government can track your movements and whereabouts 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.
This is for the purpose of charging you by the kilometre and by the minute.
Move your car, you pay. Park your car you pay.
No free society should submit to this egregious loss of privacy and freedom of movement.
It is simply a huge loss of freedom and for what would he have us trade this freedom?… to pay for a few buses. it is wrong. It should be resisted with vigour by all citizens.