John Tory defends road toll plan: If you have a better idea, let’s hear it

Nationalpost.com
Dec. 8, 2016
By Chris Selley

Mayor John Tory visited the National Post editorial board Thursday to defend his plan to toll the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway, putting the proceeds toward some $33 billion in approved-but-unfunded capital projects, notably public transit.

“There was no sense having a traffic and transit plan ... if you didn’t have the answer to the one question that’s been elusive over time: How are you going to pay for it?” Tory said. “Our map of transit lines is pathetic, compared to any city (in the world) of our size, sophistication and wealth.”

And if you don’t like his plan to pay to improve it, he said - to everyone implicitly, and explicitly to Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown - where’s yours?

It remains a remarkably bold gambit. But the plaudits died down by the end of the day he announced it. Then, and since, Toronto’s air raid siren of complaint has been fading back up toward full volume.

“In Toronto, whenever the going gets tough, politicians turn to the panacea, road tolls,” Coun. Shelley Carroll wrote, bizarrely, on her website. No one suggested tolls were a panacea, and it is demonstrably not the case that Toronto politicians always turn to road tolls when the going gets tough. Hence the lack of road tolls.

Left-wing Coun. Gord Perks called the announcement a “giant distraction” from the city’s overall revenue situation. Well might perhaps $8 billion over 30 years distract one’s attention — it’s a game-changing amount of dough. But could it not just as easily focus our minds on precisely that? If we’re suddenly getting serious, let’s get serious.

Others complained tolls won’t balance the 2017 budget, which no one said they would. Bringing back the vehicle registration tax would be quicker and potentially just as lucrative, some pointed out. Ah yes, the Tax that Made Rob Ford Mayor. What could go wrong?

Tolling the Gardiner would reduce traffic, some argued, making the approved Gardiner East rebuild an even more questionable financial proposition. The rebuild passed council 36-5 in March but never mind, let’s reopen the debate! And the price of rebuilding the Gardiner as a whole went up by $1 billion in the latest staff report. Hey, people cried, let’s tear the whole thing down!

No one on Council should be surprised the price increased. The price always increases, because Council makes decisions based on incredibly preliminary and rushed estimates. If Council approved different plans, chances are the same thing would happen. It’s indefensible planning; somehow, it has to stop; but in the meantime it’s exactly why accepting the good over the perfect and sticking to it is the only way of getting anything big done in this city.

Talking of which, many enthused, let’s reopen the Scarborough subway debate! Again! And SmartTrack! Boo, Smart Track! Now that we’re finally raising money to pay for stuff, went the reasoning, we can’t possibly spend it on stuff that mightn’t be perfect. No, no, that wouldn’t be very Torontonian at all.

Meanwhile, up the road at Queen’s Park, one of the only positive things you can say about the Liberal government is that it seems willing to let Toronto choose to implement road tolls if it pleases. The New Democrats haven’t said they wouldn’t, but they deplore “Lexus lanes” in all their forms.

Here’s 67 words of Andrea Horwath: “I don’t believe the debate should be about how much more that people who are low-income folks, who are working poor, who are working class people, are going to have to pay to take the bus and use the roads as opposed to the debate around what the other levels of government are doing to help struggling municipalities to pay the bills and provide good transit systems.”

And then there’s Brown. Last year, he told the Association of Municipalities of Ontario that cities “need to be given the resources and support they require to attract investment and grow.” Now he not only opposes Tory’s market-based plan; he vows that as premier he would prevent the city from implementing it. Behold: Conservatism in action!

“Fine, if you don’t like road tolls, I get that,” Tory said Thursday, as if addressing Brown. But people in this city love to complain about public transit. They clearly desire better. If the no-tolls crowd “don’t think road tolls are the way to pay for the transit plan,” Tory asked, “then what would they propose?”

“Build nothing” is a legitimate answer, as Tory says. We’re damn good at it. Building nothing is always an option. But toll opponents have to be honest about it. We all do.