Congested? Maybe you need a charge.

Posted on August 19, 2008 at 9:09 am by Sameer Vasta

Cars Parked in Sloane Square in London

There’s one thing you notice in downtown Toronto whether you’re a pedestrian, bike rider, driver, or transit passenger: there are too many cars on the road.

A typical trip down Yonge Street reveals broken traffic laws, high tempers, and an inability to get anywhere fast. So how do you fix that?

London’s idea to keep some cars off the streets in their core is a congestion charge.

The premise is simple: if you drive into the congestion charge zone between 7am and 6pm, you pay the city a tidy sum of £8. Any surplus revenue generated by the charge goes to improve London’s transport infrastructure — which, essentially means that people driving into the city are subsidizing things like public transit and road repairs.

Certain vehicles — like alternative fuel cars, buses, and motorcycles — are exempt from the charge in an effort to promote more sustainable ways of traveling in the core.

The system, which launched in 2003 with tons of controversy, is now an everyday part of London life. The system is monitored by CCTV cameras and automatic number plate recognition, and drivers can pay their charges online or purchase cards that allow them multiple entries over designated amounts of time.

This then begs the question: is it time for Toronto to institute its own congestion charge for cars driving in to the city core?

The benefits of a congestion charge are evident: a reduction in traffic in the core, increased revenue for local public transit development, increased use of alternative forms of transportation and energy-efficient vehicles, and clearer routes of access for emergency services, to name a few.

The drawbacks are a little harder to find, but they are there. Retailers in the core are bound to complain about a reduction in customers, fraudsters are bound to develop number plate clones, and a swarm of cars are bound to congregate at commuter hubs that can’t accommodate them.

Is Toronto ready for a congestion charge? How do we weigh the benefits versus the concerns? Where do we draw the zone boundary? How will we enforce the charges?

There are a lot of questions to ask, but they’re all questions we need to start asking now. Do you think congestion charges are a good idea? How can they be instituted effectively in the Greater Toronto Area?

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18 Comments »

  1. The thing that I do not like about tolls and such is that it makes a public thing accessible only to those who have money…

    A friend of mine who lives in London says that the congested area is less congested, but the outlying areas are more congested as a result. So, people who can afford the £8 get to their destinations more quickly, but the folks who can’t afford that are either driving around the area in more congested streets, or stuck on a bus that can’t move through the congestion (because the tube is more expensive too).

    As much as I like the idea of car drivers subsidizing transit, I don’t know that I think tolls are really the answer. Roads are a public good and should be accessible to the public – all of the public, even the economically challenged. Perhaps a higher vehicle registration fee? Or a city tax on gas? I prefer the latter because it would go up with use (rather than a flat registration that likely would not vary based on use so an occasional driver would be taxed more than a daily driver).

    GravatarComment by Nisi — August 19, 2008 @ 10:05 am

  2. My take is that a congestion charge, as such, is wrong for Toronto, at this time.

    However, I do support electronic tolls on all 400-series highways, as well as the Gardiner/DVP combo.

    The differentiation is this; the congestion charge in London is ringing a much more established and dense core, a core with far less competition for office space than downtown Toronto faces.

    If an area-based charge went into effect, I would be concerned it might serve to promote sprawl, as this point in time.

    There maybe a time, when our City-based business taxes are much lower, when laws controlling sprawl are further tightened, and when transit is drastically improved where this form of road-pricing may well work, but that day is not yet here.

    For now, I think tolling highways is better as it doesn’t penalize the core to the benefit of low-density, transit-unfriendly suburban office parks.

    It penalizes the driving choice wherever its made, and this in fact will favour the core, as in such an environment access to transit is more important.

    ***

    Having said that I favour tolls, I think it is critical to directly tie them to meaningful improvements in public transit. Not future improvements, but rather improvements that take effect the same day the tolls do.

    So, if we toll the DVP, the GO Richmond Hill line must move to full-day service, and double its rush hour service the same day.

    If we toll the QEW/Gardiner, Lakeshore GO service needs to double or triple in off-peak and rise by 1/2 in rush hour; and so on.

    Otherwise you won’t accomplish any shift in the modal split, you therefore won’t relieve congestion, and the public will merely end up demanding the removal of the tolls.

    GravatarComment by James — August 19, 2008 @ 12:52 pm

  3. It seems to me that public officials from Toronto visited London some time ago to study the outlined plan for traffic improvements. I do believe that the outcome of the investigation was that Toronto could not impliment the scheme for a variety of reasons —including the points mentioned in this post.

    GravatarComment by Barry McDermott — August 19, 2008 @ 12:53 pm

  4. This kind of reminds me of the fee required to cross a certain street by bus (in our case, Steeles Ave). Essentially what you are doing to people is tolling them for trying to relieve cross-regional traffic. What a great way to say thank you.

    This congestion charge zone would be brilliant, because it would put cars on the same page as transit users. If you want to contribute to congestion and pollution, then here’s your punishment. Why we punish transit riders for taking the more logical way to commute is beyond me.

    GravatarComment by Raffi — August 19, 2008 @ 1:49 pm

  5. @ Nisi

    I think a city-wide gas tax would only bankrupt Toronto gas stations as people opt to fill up their tanks outside city limits.

    GravatarComment by Jeffrey Yap — August 19, 2008 @ 2:19 pm

  6. London is having a lot of trouble convincing people in the city that the congestion charge is justified—they just voted out the mayor who brought it in: http://www.autoblog.com/2008/08/08/london-congestion-charge-has-failed-to-solve-congestion/

    A charge on 400-series highways is just as bad—if not worse. It will only shift traffic from highways where it’s safely contained, onto already busy arterials and residential roads.

    The only fair way to charge motorists is through gas taxes. It’s simple, discourages commuting… at the expense of choking the suburbs. As long as people still live in the 905 it’s going to be a hard sell.

    GravatarComment by geo — August 19, 2008 @ 2:24 pm

  7. @ Geo

    Don’t forget, the mayor of London elected to represent all of Greater London, while the congestion zone was only a small part. Around 140,00 people live in the zone (and were exempt from the charge), with a total population of 7,000,000 in Greater London. Essentially, the outsiders ganged up on the downtowners.

    Because of the fact that every city in the GTA is fully independent it’s not a fair comparison. It would be politically popular if all residents of the 416 were exempt, because 905 residents can’t vote for the mayor of Toronto anyway.

    In my opinion, the only comparison between London and Toronto is the nature of the trips. Most of people in Greater London are going into the core, while the trips in Greater Toronto are far more random. A downtown congestion charge wouldn’t address this.

    GravatarComment by Andrae Griffith — August 19, 2008 @ 3:39 pm

  8. Gas taxes is the better option.

    I am also hoping Metrolinx proposes a levy on every non-residential parking space. That will have the same effect as the London model, but without the inherent problems.

    GravatarComment by Triceratops — August 19, 2008 @ 4:24 pm

  9. I agree with James in that services to accomodate modal shifts need to be made available the same day; this requires heavy investments to make possible, and goes well beyond just GO Train services (remember that there certainly won’t be enough parking at GO Stations).

    I disagree with the premise of only having a congestion zone in Toronto’s downtown; downtown Hamilton, downtown Mississauga, downtown Brampton, downtown Markham, etc., all need to have congestion zones themselves in order to economically balance the region or Toronto accomplishes nothing but handicapping its competitiveness within the region, and that could cause Toronto’s revenue to plummet.

    I strongly disagree with the idea of tolling only 400-series highways (and their cousins DVP and QEW/Gardiner), for the same reasons Geo mentioned.

    However, I think that instead of tolling these kinds of highways, we instead restore the competitiveness of public transit; the TTC made a profit until 1970. In 1967, the DVP/Gardiner were completed, and 4 years later, the TTC is making a loss, just after adding the Bloor-Danforth Subway and removing zone fares 5 years earlier – removing zone fares makes the system cheaper for many, so why didn’t ridership rise enough to compensate?

    The highways effectively obliterated the TTC’s competitive edge in accessing downtown. Why take the subway when cars don’t have to go through traffic signals to reach the core either? The city is now looking at dismantling a small part of the Gardiner; while the Gardiner would need to be cut back to at least Spadina (preferably Strachan) before any competitiveness can be restored to the TTC for core-bound travel, it is still a step in the right direction (the process is taking too long, however). The competitiveness for GO Transit will also rise together with the TTC since currently all GO Trains go to Union Station (which is also accessible by the Gardiner).

    I should state that this is not a scheme for a car-free downtown. Cars will still be able to access it, it just might not be as fast as it used to be, but they’ll still be an important presence to downtown. Enhancements to Richmond (east of Spadina), Adelaide (east of Bathurst), Wellington (west of York), Front (west of York), and Lakeshore (Strachan-Cherry) can easily accomodate the loads through a divide-and-conquer traffic management approach.

    This is part of restoring a balance between auto and transit in the core, but a lot of tranist improvements in the core are needed first – more LRT and a HRT DRL.

    GravatarComment by Karl Junkin — August 19, 2008 @ 4:39 pm

  10. Hmmm,

    If I understand those who aren’t comfortable with taxing the 400-series highways, the principle argument seems to be that some portion of the traffic will be dislocated to local roads.

    I’m not certain I accept this premise.

    Now it all depends on one’s commuting pattern, and an area as large as the GTA has many and varied commuting patterns.

    However, I would assume the majority of highway commuters are driving a distance greater than 10km (via highway) to their final destination.

    A great number, of course drive much further, and a small number use highways for purely local travel.

    Assuming that you had a commute from the Mississauga/Toronto border to downtown Toronto, would you, for the sake of avoiding a 25c per Km toll (or about $2.50 each way) choose to come in via Lakeshore Blvd with all the stops, the streetcars, the lights and the max speed limit of 50-60kmp/h?

    Even more difficult to imagine, the commuter from Don Mills and Steeles, choosing to use Don Mills Road instead?

    Even choosing an all suburban route, say Scarborough City Centre to North York City Centre? Sheppard instead?

    I don’t see tolls moving massive numbers of people onto the local roads, as the much longer commute time, the more stop-and-start driving patters would be too frustrating for most.

    Undoubtedly some would make the local-road choice, but I think this would mostly be for very short-haul drives, which, I might add, highways were never intended to facilitate.

    And for each person who keeps their car, and moves to a local road, I imagine at least as many switching to transit, a great many choosing to pay-to-play, and a few local roaders joining the expressway crowd if tolls free up enough room to make the commute time worth the toll.

    I am certainly open to other options. I think the parking tax works, though again, it needs to be regional or it has an adverse impact on local-competitiveness.

    I’m not as big a fan of gas-taxes, because I think the monthly bill from 407 (or the MTO) has greater sticker-shock value and greater resonance with most drivers than the incremental moves in gas pricing, paid every week or 2, often with cash, and no paper record of where the money went.

    But that’s just my anecdotal impression.

    One more note on the parking side, The City of Toronto (and its suburban counterparts) need to do more to raise the price of on-street parking. Toronto’s top rate of is noticeably below other urban areas.

    I think its time to make sure free on-street parking goes away all together, with local residents forced to buy parking permits if they want to park on street.

    While visitors should pay at least $1.00 an hour even in outlying areas. In downtown its time for $4.00 an hour parking!

    GravatarComment by James — August 19, 2008 @ 6:35 pm

  11. I can’t think of a single reason why the use of arterial roads by cars should be rewarded for the benefit of having empty highways.

    GravatarComment by Triceratops — August 20, 2008 @ 1:25 am

  12. I agree with pretty much everything James said.

    GravatarComment by Raffi — August 20, 2008 @ 8:28 am

  13. [...] new Metronauts blog is going strong. This week, I added a post about the London congestion charge zone and if it was possible to do something similar in Toronto: The benefits of a congestion charge are [...]

    GravatarPingback by Stuffed up. | i tell stories — August 21, 2008 @ 9:11 am

  14. Whilst I agree to a certan extent that tolls are required on the 400 series, the important piece is we should see how the money generated is spent. If we improve services, increase the frequency of GO, VIA it would help. Also making them accessible as in some areas to get to a bus stand takes a walk of a kilometre and in Winter an impossible task. A toll charge of anything more than 50c a day for a daily commute would mean that you want to push people to public transit. If you survey the roads such as the 401 or 404 in the mornings not all the drivers are Bay Street Lawyers or investment bankers making half million in come that they can affort to pay hefty tolls. It is the regular guy who lives in the suburbs making ends meet and who is compelled to use his car as the access to transit is not the most convenient. Any toll charge or change that we plan for should also factor in a “green plan”.

    GravatarComment by Ravi — August 22, 2008 @ 11:08 pm

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