TransLink and the Mayors Council appointed the Mobility Pricing Independent Commission to review options for pricing Metro Vancouver roads and bridges in order to manage congestion and invest in our transportation system. Later this spring, the commission will release its final report that is to outline a fair mobility pricing system.
But fairness is in the eye of the beholder.
Asking drivers to pay more is fair as it targets those causing congestion. Using revenues to improve the overall transportation system, including better public transit, also makes sense.
However, not all households have equal incomes or resources, and ability to pay must be a core fairness principle.
A key equity concern is that low-income households with no option but to drive are adversely affected while affluent drivers can travel more quickly without noticing much impact on their budget.
Some people cannot immediately change their behaviour and/or may live in areas where it is hard to imagine alternative ways than driving to get around. This is related to the high cost of housing in Metro Vancouver, which forces low-income households to move further out to find affordable housing.
Exactly what mobility pricing in Metro Vancouver would look like is to be determined, including rates at different times of day, exemptions for certain vehicles, and how the revenues are used.
The independent commission is considering two models of mobility pricing: congestion point charges, which would likely result in tolls on most regional bridges and key choke points on highways, and distance-based charges, which would price each kilometre driven but could vary by time and location.
Metro Vancouver’s growing congestion problems may mean some drivers are amenable to new solutions, but willingness to pay is another matter. Unless it is seen as fair, residents are not likely to accept any proposed system.
Mobility pricing can learn from BC’s carbon tax. A low-income credit is funded from carbon tax revenues and a similar mechanism for mobility pricing could target low-income drivers and households. There must also be transportation fairness for other disadvantaged groups including people who can’t drive due to age or disability.
A major expansion of public transit before implementation of a mobility pricing system would further benefit low-income households that are more reliant on public transit. My recent report, Getting Around Metro Vancouver, shows that London and Stockholm made major investments in transit before implementing congestion charges.
It is important to note that drivers do not pay the full cost of their trips. The public costs of driving include building and maintaining roads and bridges, policing and related public services, subsidies to fuel production and parking spaces. There are also external costs imposed on society as a whole: carbon emissions, air pollution, sprawl, noise, and the environmental costs of upstream fuel extraction and processing.
In Metro Vancouver, there is already mobility pricing with transit fares and distance pricing on Skytrain and Seabus. Well-designed mobility pricing would do the same for car travel, and could accelerate the shift away from auto-dependency.
But the devil is in the details: attention must be paid to the equity aspects of whichever design is chosen.
Marc Lee is a senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC Office and writes on a variety of economic and social policy issues.
