A Voice In The Wilderness...

...but I guess it is my responsibility as a driver to add at least another $2000 to my expenses so my neighbor's kids can get to York U easier, his vacation plans become more efficient because it is easier for him to get to the airport, etc. etc.

Thomson suggests road tolls to pay for subway expansion

Thomson suggests road tolls to pay for subway expansion. Mayoralty candidate Sarah Thomson says she’d use new road tolls on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway to fund subway expansion. Courtesy sarahthomson.ca

DAVID NICKLE
March 17, 2010

Mayoralty candidate Sarah Thomson says she'd use new road tolls on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway to fund a massive subway expansion in place of Transit City's light rail network.
"We must, as a city and as citizens, decide that we want to move Toronto forward, that we want a citywide subway system reaching out to the airport in the west, through Scarborough to the east, and up to Steeles and York University in the north," said Thomson in a Wednesday, March 17, morning news conference unveiling the $13-$14 billion plan.
The plan would see Transit City scrapped. In its place, the city would build a subway along the currently-planned light rail route along Eglinton, from Kennedy Road to Pearson International Airport; an extension of the Sheppard subway east from Don Mills to the Scarborough Town Centre; the replacement of the Scarborough RT line from Kennedy Road to the Scarborough Town Centre; and a downtown relief line, running from Pape Station south to Queen Street, then along Queen and up to meet the Dundas West Station.
In total, she said the city needs to build 58 kilometres of subway.
Thomson estimated it would cost between $13 and $14 billion in total - and that it could be paid for using a combination of provincial funds allocated from the existing $8 billion Transit City fund, and a new road toll.
That toll, she said, would be placed on the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway.
"From Monday to Friday, during peak hours, a reasonable fee will be charged to vehicles that use our overcrowded highways," she said. "For example, we could generate $400 million and $500 million per year on the Gardiner and Don Valley Parkway with a $5 toll, based on 2006 traffic counts."
She said the tolls would first pay for the ongoing maintenance of the two highways - then be devoted exclusively to subway construction and expansion.
And they would end after 10 years, or once they had paid the city's share of the subway constructions costs. "Whichever comes first," she said.
She said she believed the city could build those subways less expensively with the private sector in charge - estimating the subways might be built for as little as $200 million a kilometre, versus the $350 million estimated by the TTC.
The plan is not the most ambitious put forward by a mayoralty candidate - Giorgio Mammoliti has also spoken about building subways instead of streetcar lines, and has promised a subway running up Jane Street.
Rocco Rossi has said he would halt work on any of the Transit City lines to make sure the province provided operating subsidy for the new lines. George Smitherman has appeared supportive of the Transit City initiative but has not yet articulated a transit plan.
No one, however, is talking about road tolls. In 2003, an off-the-cuff remark about road tolls dogged then-candidate Mayor David Miller, and made the subject of tolling the city's highways a taboo subject among the political class at city hall.
Thomson, however, said she believed Torontonians would embrace tolls if they knew they were going to subway construction.
"I think people want to invest in Toronto," she said. "I haven't talked to one person who doesn't want this - to see what the subway system can do for our city. People want to invest in it."