City studying various road charge models
The city has ordered a study on tolls – not just bridge tolls but downtown access charges and a kilometrage charge, but not a congestion charge as such. François Cardinal is in favour of the kilometrage option – I admit I have no idea how this is tracked, to be honest. But I think he’s right in saying that making people pay to access downtown would be a huge mistake for the city.
Clément 10:52 on 2013/02/05 Permalink
I’m being lazy and just copying and pasting the same comment I made on FC’s post:
Le problème à Montréal est différent de Londres.
À Londres, l’objectif premier du péage était de désengorger le centre-ville et ce fut une réussite. Par ailleurs, le péage à Londres ne génère pas de profits (ou si peu) à cause des ses coûts élevés d’opération.
À Montréal, le but avoué des péages est simplement d’augmenter les revenus fiscaux, sans plus. Ce qui à Londres est un objectif louable deviendrait rapidement à Montréal une conséquence néfaste. C’est pourquoi la comparaison entre Montréal et Londres ne tient pas la route…
Kate 10:58 on 2013/02/05 Permalink
Yep. That’s pretty much the scenario. It’s a losing game to fill transit coffers by choking off the city centre here.
Ephraim 11:22 on 2013/02/05 Permalink
A bridge toll at prime hours would be a much better use of money. The toll is into Montreal and out of Montreal only during rush hour. The more traffic, the higher the charge. It should be related to the cost of taking the metro and parking into the city. It’s simply a way of cutting down on rush hour traffic. And frankly, as I have pointed out, trucks need to be paying a heck of a lot of money to go through Montreal on the 40 instead of taking the 30. (So, for example, toxic waste from the Maritimes isn’t trucked through the city on it’s way to Ontario.)
Looking for a new way to bring money into the city coffers isn’t a real solution. We are already pretty much at the top of the tax. Moving taxes from one side of the equation to another isn’t effective. Controlling costs, running things efficiently are. There are no accounting methods in place to force the city to be efficient at all. Which is the real problem. And then the corruption of such things as selling off the parking meters, having the tourism department run privately (but collecting tax money). Is Bixi paying for their parking spaces? Is the city getting paid of the usage of sidewalks by scaffolding? Is the city taxing empty buildings beyond a certain date for construction and repair? Incentivizing the occupation of space rather than giving back tax money on empty space because rents are too high? What is the city actually doing to make this run like a well oiled machine? The city is a business. Business should be run efficiently (even if it isn’t run for a profit.) and not simply as a way to pad pockets.
Mathieu 11:35 on 2013/02/05 Permalink
They were talking a while ago about a system of concentric “belts” around the CMM. For instance, if you come in the city by A20 from Québec, you get to pay a toll when entering the CMM in St-Hyacinthe, another one at A30, another one at the tunnel and a last one when you exit A20/A40 to come inside the city centre. Tolls would be more expensive as you come closer to downtown, going for less than a dollar to probably more than 5$ to make traffic flow.
If the technology for electronic tolls exists and there are options at each “stage” to drop your car, I’m all in favour of this. This way, people commuting downtown would pay to finance roads and transit, as well as people commuting from St-Hyacinthe to Longueuil. Local car use wouldn’t be impacted.
It isn’t only to get more money, but to make trafic flow. If the roads are free, demand is high and there is congestion. The more expensive it is, the less people want to use it for travel that could be done by transit/bike and people will reconsider their transportation habits. That is if transit and biking infrastructure come along!
Steve Quilliam 11:59 on 2013/02/05 Permalink
They keep looking for ways to collect more and more money but the reality is that we are already sending the city and the goverment a lot of money. Way more than we should so the question is where does all this money going ? To much of it is going into passive like salaries, benefits, advantages and pension plans for the city employees at large. Way to much of it is going there. If all these employees (politicians, civil servants, blue collar, white collar, firefighter etc…) would get benefits, advantages and salaries similar to that of the private sector we would suddenly find billions of available dollars to spend on public transit and our crumbling infrastructure, per example.
Which politicians will have the balls to change that and bring eveyone at the same level and not give privilege to just the city employees ? So far none, therefor expect to pay more and more for the benefits of the privileged ones while the politicians are letting us believe it’s for public transit or other services ! Yeah right !
Alex L 12:07 on 2013/02/05 Permalink
I’m not against tolls in Montréal, but there has to be many more public transit options (more trains, subway extensions, rapid buses, trams) to justify that new tax. Car users need to be able to make the shift smoothly, not having to hop into an orange line already crowded.
David Tighe 12:24 on 2013/02/05 Permalink
The issue is not making people pay for access but making motorists pay for the social costs of bringing their car
David Tighe 12:31 on 2013/02/05 Permalink
It would certainly be sensible to have a reduced rate in off-peak periods when congestion is not an issue
Bill Binns 14:38 on 2013/02/05 Permalink
+1 to everything Ephraim said. Especially regarding blocking sidewalks with scaffolding or other construction materials. I don’t know if they charge for this now but if they do, the fees must be very reasonable. I find it infuriating that pedestrians can be forced to cross three streets to get where they are going so a construction company can leave a dumpster on the sidewalk for months at a time. Something around $100 a day for every 10 meters of inaccessable sidewalk sounds about right to me.
Regarding traffic downtown. I’d like to see a small core of downtown go permanently car free year-round. Maybe St Cat between Guy and McGill College. Get people used to the idea and slowly enlarge the zone over time.