Mayor Miller Favours Toll Roads

But I don't believe his mention of them during his last campaign is not the same as the idea put forward by a London city councillor in this latest debacle about Toronto garbage. Miller's answer would be to build an off ramp to the dump......all he would have to do is forgo building a few thousand speed bumps on Toronto's residential roads.

London contemplates tolls to stop T.O.'s trash

Sep. 23, 2006. 04:35 PM

CANADIAN PRESS

Municipalities were given the power to put tolls on roads in 2001, but the final decision to allow such a road rests with the lieutenant-governor in council.

LONDON, Ont. — A London city councillor says Toronto should pay if it wants to use roads in this southwestern Ontario city to haul its garbage. At an emergency meeting of a city county waste management steering committee Friday, Councillor Susan Eagle said London should close roads or install toll booths to stop Toronto trash from being dumped in the Green Lane Landfill southwest of London. "I'm talking about stuff that will stop them," Eagle said. "We need to push back as hard and fast as we can. We need to make it very clear we're not happy and we're going to use every political and legal means possible to make it difficult — if not impossible — for them to bring their garbage here." The committee met to discuss Toronto's deal, which won't close for 90 days, to buy Green Lane Environmental's landfill. The deal was announced Tuesday. Closing roads or putting in a toll may be a moot point. Toronto city council passed a motion directing staff to explore building an off-ramp on Highway 401 that would lead directly to the landfill. "We would hope London would allow us to use their roads, but we are looking at other options," said Stuart Green, spokesman for Toronto Mayor David Miller. The only road the city could close or put a toll booth along is Southminster Bourne, which it jointly owns with Southwold Township, where the landfill is located. The move would likely require Southwold's support. The committee will ask city council and county council to expand its mandate to examine the implications of the sale of the landfill to Toronto and potential actions and controls that could be taken with regard to roads. The committee also endorsed Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best's efforts to oppose the sale and has asked staff for several reports dealing with the effect of the sale on London, especially its roads and city-owned landfill. DeCicco-Best said the issue will be on the environment and transportation committee's agenda Monday. "I will never give up this issue that I've fought so hard on for the last six years," she said. DeCicco-Best said she'll deliver the city's objections to Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten in a meeting Tuesday arranged by St. Thomas Mayor Jeff Kohler. DeCicco-Best and Kohler will ask the minister for a provincial strategy on waste management, but also measures to ensure municipalities affected by a landfill sale have input. In an email Friday, Broten said the province already has a provincewide strategy: diversion. "We have to divert more from landfills," she wrote. "Every municipality across the province must increase its diversion rates by reducing, reusing and recycling. And we're making progress." Kohler also wants assurances Toronto will ensure Green Lane has the capacity to take garbage from area municipalities for the landfill's projected lifespan of 20 years.