Is it time for more toll roads in Canada's biggest cities?

Just what we need, another tax! What next.....will there be a toll to use the side walks once people start walking because they can't afford to drive?

Can i start charging the city for cutting the grass on the boulevard that i don't own? It makes me sick that the answer to everything is to charge more.......we as tax payers pay enough. If our government can't add and subtract properly or manage our money better, fix that problem first.

Our city planners are the ones who designed our roads and travel system - which we paid for. Now because the bad planning is creating grid lock - we the tax payers should pay some more?

Our roads are busy because we did urban sprawl but didn't plan to have businesses operate in smaller cities. We built our country on the plan of cheap gas and commuting.

They say live closer to work - have you seen the prices down town or in Markham/Richmond Hill etc.?

I guess it is part of inflation. The price of life keeps going up, and we all are suprisingly making less.

Makes sense why kids want to stay kids a bit longer now. The real world is ugly.........

Great idea !
Get rid of all taxes, surcharges and duties on gasoline, insurance and cars and impose a toll road plan for the big cities.

When can this be implemented. Perhaps the cut in government revenue might limit their military purchase and venture ideas.

The roads are "free" and people not using the roads wisely? Where do you come up with this stuff?

Maybe the problem is there are simply too many people on this planet. 99% pay for everything from our roads to our government, while the other 1% make all the rules, regulations and have all the money and dictate what the 99% should pay for.

Here we go again......................charge driver's another tax !! If we drivers stopped buying cars,gas,tires etc..................imagine the high unemployment & enormous loss of taxes to the governments at all levels.Who would they tax then? The pedestrains?

Build a LRT,Subway system (This idea has been studied for the last 40+ years) for commuters to use,that is cost-effective,reliable and in-expensive to use,and I am sure that people will get outof their cars & use it.You don't need am ticket-collector making $25.00 + an hour to watch people put their tix in the slot.Use computerized terminal as they do in most large Australian cities.
It is cheaper for my family to drive to downtown Toronto (including the "rip-off" parking fees) than use the subway or TTC/York transit.

We pay gasoline taxes both provincial and federal, excise taxes and in some cities, like mine, a regional gasoline tax for transit.Can't forget the Gordon Campbell Carbon Tax either, that goes into General Revenue with the rest of those taxes. I would have no probably if the monies collected for roads went to roads, but it doesn't. Ergo, no more taxes until the ones we now pay or efficiently used and exhausted. I am tired of being nickled and dimed to death and treated like an ATM by federal, municipal and local politicians.

I am only seeing the local picture here in the county of waterloo were they plane to build a rail system from mall to mall at close to nine hundred million dollars for the use of mall shoppers but most people live in urban areas and will need a car to get to that service sounds like a good plan not .then they expect the rest of the region to pay for this .
there will be a lot of money made by a few at the expense of everybody the rest of the tax payers not just in watertloo but the rest of ontario as well .
And of coarse this will create even more government and more uncontrolable expense to the tax payer
I could get into this toll road debate but first let us remember there is only so much money in our pockets and the government we have elected do not seem to know that .
lets downsize there paycheques and the number of people who are working in government to balance our deficit then our debt or we will end up like greece or spain and a few others .
seems they will not learn until the big financial institutes start to downgrade and put us down as poor credit card holders
My parents have never spent more than they make and they did not spend all that much and did not have government pensions which are golden .In other words they lived within there means

The sad truth behind Toronto's desire to impose road tolls is that Toronto will not tax their citizens fairly, and poor planning has driven the industrial tax base out of the city. Toronto has always looked to "others" to pay for what Toronto should raise and spend on their own. The idea of a road toll is to have people commuting into Toronto to pay for Toronto. This ignores the fact that as many people live in Toronto and work elsewhere as those that live elsewhere and drive into the city.

It also ignores the fact that their are those that do not "work" in Toronto, but must occasionally drive there to do business, physically. Road Tolls raise the cost of business, making business in Toronto less profitable, and therefore less attractive.

Want to ruin Toronto and its reputation more... then bring on a road toll.

Stupid idea. Very stupid. Toll revenue will come at the expense of lost business in many areas serviced by these roads.

I already take a toll road to get to work, the 407. I think the 407 is worth the cost becasue it is in good condition and isn't congested, yet. Therefore, I get to work much quicker and I am probably saving some gas in the process too.

If a toll road is also congested and doesn't get you to where you need to get any quicker than the non-toll road, its not worth it.

My commute is plan A - Go Train, plan B - TTC, plan C - drive. If more people would be a little less selfish, congestion would be lessened (there are car-pooling options for people driving to and from the north and not too many utilize this option). I am amazed at how many people drive to work in snow or bad weather when they nor their vehicles are equipped to deal with it. I make the extra effort to take public transit then as I can read a book on the Go Train instead of sitting on the DVP in bumper-to-bumper traffic. We fail miserably as a society when there are empty seats on the Go train and TTC trains. I really think that GO needs to inform commuters that it is a viable option instead of driving (time and money). Cars were never meant as a means for daily commute to and from work. For those, working and living within the city, TTC is more efficient time and cost-wise. However, the problem is getting people to see that. However, a toll would at least get some to consider public transit in an effort to save money. Just imagine how wealthy most of us would be by putting into RRSP the money we spend on a car, insurance, maintenance, and fuel.

Environics is a Liberal-leaning polling company. For an issue as explosive as this is requires a quantitative, verified qualitative as well as three or four different polling companies to complete widespread polls.

I am in an 8 year long battle with 407-ETR because when my son 'totalled' the vehicle in an accident, we did NOT know that the transponder must be saved and returned by mail to 407-ETR!

He has been living in England trying to acquire custody of his two children since September 11, 2005. He got 'Full Residency' but not custody a month ago as Social Services finally realized his girlfriend - who said she would marry him and he would be able to get a job when they went back to her hometown of Newcastle, UK. and proceeded to call the police and have him arrested for stalking while he was living with her and the children and also called Immigration so he would be 'booted' from England- was a true risk for the children after all these years and she is now under investigation.

Why do I mention this tragic circumstance, because in the meantime it has taken donations from Church friends to pay the $449 my son owed on his 407-ETR lease - his girlfriend 'took care of the bills - and 407-ETR has added INTEREST CHARGES up to $2,900 and have TAKEN MY RIGHT TO A DRIVER'S LICENCE PLATE - THREE TIMES?1?

They act as a monopoly, investigating themselves very smugly as does the Minister of Transportation's office because DALTON MCGUINTY GAVE 407-ETR THE RIGHT TO DO SO.

407-ETR is NOT a government agency but it DOES have the complete authority and privileges of one and despite the efforts of my wonderful MPP, John O'Toole, and no help from the Premier, the Transportation Ministry in addition to media outlets CTV, GLOBAL and SUN NEWS, I still face a personal debt of $2,900, NO DRIVERS PLATE LICENCE RIGHTS and, harassment from 407-ETR even though they know I am on Long-Term Disability with CPP.

Those of us on the edge of the GTA who rarely need THE CURRENT TOLL ROAD OWNED BY A SPANISH CONSORTIUM along with THE ONTARIO TEACHERS' PENSION PLAN, are completely at the mercy of said company.

ANOTHER TOLL ROAD - NO THANKS!!!

Taxes on gas were to be used for roadways in the country. The Feds and Provinces both collect gasoline tax and if they had to account for that money being used solely on roads they would fail the audit. While car pooling is a good idea it fails because of the way people are having work longer hours to complete their work. Let's face it the 50's, 60's and 70's were much better times. The global economy has really caused more damage than good.

Sure, let the tax payers foot the bill for another toll road.....only for the government to turn around and sell it as they did with the 407 - and at far less than it's true value, too. So typically Canadian...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Highway_407

Powers:

Get an F'ing grip. We pay enough taxes in this country. We need government that is responsible for they taxes they collect, not reasons to whack the poplulation more.

Case in point, Dave Dingwall (Lib MP) took money that was meant for the Wentworth Pass in Nova Scotia and plowed it into his Cape Breton riding. What was the result? A GOD DAMN toll in the Wentworth Pass that should have been free.

Polling people to get the answer(s) you want to prove an illegitimate point is pandering to a view that shoud never see the light of day.

"travelling the highways at non-peak times" Do you go to work Powers at 6pm till 2:30 am, or do you have that luxury of sitting at home and criticizing those people who cannot do as you do.

Powers:

Get an F'ing grip. We pay enough taxes in this country. We need government that is responsible for they taxes they collect, not reasons to whack the poplulation more.

Case in point, Dave Dingwall (Lib MP) took money that was meant for the Wentworth Pass in Nova Scotia and plowed it into his Cape Breton riding. What was the result? A GOD DAMN toll in the Wentworth Pass that should have been free.

Polling people to get the answer(s) you want to prove an illegitimate point is pandering to a view that shoud never see the light of day.

"travelling the highways at non-peak times" Do you go to work Powers at 6pm till 2:30 am, or do you have that luxury of sitting at home and criticizing those people who cannot do as you do.

If they start collecting tolls on the roads in Toronto, prices of everything in Toronto, not so much outside of Toronto, will rise. Transportation companies will put a surcharge on deliveries and pick ups to Toronto. This will make doing the cost of business more for companies, higher food costs and more. This will make companies see that they can do business cheaper elsewhere. Housing prices will drop, radically, in time, there will be no jobs. Tolling roads in the Toronto area will be the death knell for Toronto in time.

They have it wrong, The folks thinking this should just charge 6 or 8 cents a liter of Gas, on stations within the city, like Vancouver does, and all that money goes to transit It cannot be a province wide tax, I, who do not live in Toronto, who would never use your transit systems, should not have to pay for your subways.

How long have you putting your odometer reading on that little piece of paper that you use to renew the sticker on your license plate. Mark my words, someday the government is going to taxing everyone in the province on what they write in that space. Tax you for every kilometer you drive.

HaHa try living in a valley with one road in and one road out! And an ever growing population. Lack of road, over abundance of vehicles and what do you get.... road rage. The powers at be wonder why. Further more the roads are in poor repair and people are dying on them. OH! did i say welcome to Kelowna.

I lived in France for a number of years, and the condition of the roads put us to shame here.
The reason being, they toll the main auotoroutes.
This income pays for the major and minor highway routes to be maintained.
There are no tolls inside the cities.
The system works.

It is hard to believe that anyone would have the nerve to even suggest a road tax. Look what we are paying now in road taxes with the 407 and gas tax. And then these incompetent grits abuse the taxes we do give them. How did McGinty ever get in again? He has done nothing but lie and abuse the taxes that he does get. Why should I be paying to let him abuse our hard earned money. Remember e-health!

if we have to pay a toll to have our roads fixed, where does our tax money go to in the first place?
Second, they do "fix" the roads, but half of the jobs they do are unacceptable! If you look very closely and look at the work the city does, you will see it is simply a half assed patch job. Drive around and take pictures. It is pretty sad!

Glad I don't live in the city, and work out of my home.