12-22-2016, 08:42 AM
(12-22-2016, 07:01 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: The strangest thing about this is how we are getting disagreement about basic facts. There are actually a wide variety of supportable positions regarding how various types of roads should be paid for, and in one of my early posts I even indicated that I wasn’t sure that I myself fully supported the position I had stated. But reasonable people cannot disagree that there is in fact no price charged to use most roads in Ontario.
This seems like a semantic argument. Road users aren't being charged to use the roads, but those same users are the ones paying for a significant percentage of road costs through gas taxes. A certain percentage of the costs is subsidized, just as it is with transit and other infrastructure, which doesn't seem particularly unreasonable to me.
I think the frustrating thing to me reading this thread is that arguments that road users are getting a free ride and not bearing the cost of their choice in transportation is a rather extreme interpretation of the facts and does not gel at all with the experience of most drivers who are well aware of the financial costs of driving (even if being ignorant of some of the nuance being debated ad nauseum on here). The merits of transit funding and alternative funding models for road maintenance and construction can stand on their own without alienating a significant portion of the population who are more likely to just shut-off and ignore what is being said than engage with debates like that.
Just looking at the debate over tolling the Gardiner and DVP in Toronto. The main reason this seems to be gaining traction is that the justification is fair and reasonable. Torontonians are the ones paying for the infrastructure (principally through property taxes) while it is primarily 905ers using it. A toll seems like a reasonable approach for Toronto to recoup the cost of maintaining those roads from the people using it.