Political gridlock in Toronto and Vancouver

GlobeAndMail.com
May 21, 2015

Toronto and Vancouver are each on uncertain, tortuous paths that may or may not relieve gridlock.

The voters of the Lower Mainland have to get their mail-in ballots into Elections B.C. not later than Friday of next week; more than 38 per cent have now done so. The question they have to answer is whether they are willing to pay a “congestion improvement tax”: an additional half-a-percentage point on the provincial sales tax. People in the City of Vancouver itself appear to be doing the most of the voting – but what that means won’t be clear until voting ends on May 29.

Meanwhile in Toronto, one city councillor, James Pasternak, is proposing a toll to pay for the rebuilding of the Gardiner Expressway, which runs roughly parallel to the shore of Lake Ontario. Toward its eastern end, it is starting to crumble. Repairs are expected to cost around $1-billion.

The principle of user-pay for roads has always been economically unassailable. And when expressed by an elected official, it has also usually been a form of political suicide. Mr. Pasternak says he has a “slim majority” in favour of his idea. He wants a staff report in June on the proposed toll – and on who would and would not pay it. And there’s the rub.

Mayor John Tory is opposed to road tolls in Toronto, but at times in the past he has at least been open to such an idea – before he was mayor, that is. But it would certainly not be the end of the world if Mr. Tory were outvoted on this one issue by Mr. Pasternak and others. The mayor might even be relieved to have been given deniability.

Some of the alleged slim majority, however, are not venturing to risk annoying their own constituents. The proposed Gardiner toll would only be imposed on the inhabitants of the outer darkness – greetings, residents of Mississauga, Pickering, Vaughan and beyond – even though Torontonians would get much, perhaps most, of the benefits. At least one Toronto councillor, John Campbell, takes a more enlightened view; he would tax all drivers equally.

Both Toronto and Vancouver clearly need improved transit, and that means new revenue tools to pay for it. The road there is narrow, and not straight.