The Lower Mainland’s mayors and TransLink have started a process to study how road pricing could be used to combat traffic congestion.
In the most general terms, road pricing is a system of tolls that charges drivers based on the distance they drive.
The point is to give commuters an incentive to avoid the roads at rush hour, if at all possible, or to consider other methods that might reduce traffic – like cycling, carpooling or transit. Money raised through the levies would be used to expand transit service, which is sorely needed.
But it also has the capacity to be brutally unfair, putting the most expensive costs on those who commute the farthest and have the least access to transit. A reminder: Our current congestion problems on the North Shore are inextricably linked with the cost of housing here, sending our workforce farther and farther afield.
We don’t know what form this will take. We don’t know what the province will agree to. At this point, we don’t even know who will be holding power in the legislature in a year’s time.
Here’s what we do know. We have to start trying new things to improve mobility in the Lower Mainland. It was never realistic to think every commuter in a single-occupancy vehicle was going to be entitled to wide open roads. And anyone who believes wider bridges and more lanes of traffic will solve the problem has clearly never travelled through Los Angeles or the Greater Toronto Area at rush hour.
We look forward to a fulsome debate on this. Those of us who commute in cars have a lot of time on our hands to ponder the pros of cons of spending a few bucks to make it home in time for dinner.
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