The NDP have made good on their dumbest campaign promise, announcing Friday that they would eliminate tolls on the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges.
What this will inevitably do is incent more people into their cars and onto the roads. Why go through the bother of transit or carpooling if it’s not even going to save a few bucks?
So, who on the North Shore is excited to have even more single-occupancy vehicles lining up on the Cut, Keith Road and Main Street to get to the Ironworkers during the afternoon commute home?
And, what’s worse, without any user-pay whatsoever for the outstanding $5 billion in debt we owe for those bridges, we are now effectively subsidizing the sprawl that spawned the traffic in the first place.
But this “toll-free B.C.” policy wasn’t made for us. It was made to woo the voters of Surrey. No party can hold power in the legislature without winning a bunch of battleground ridings there.
To their credit, the Green-backed NDP minority government is putting up the money for upgrades to the transit system. The Liberals’ complete bungling of TransLink probably has a lot to do with why they’ve been Opposition-benched for the season.
On tolling, the NDP do have another chance at redemption though. The province has established a committee that is studying how we could implement some form of mobility pricing.
As long as it’s done equitably, that’s ultimately where we have to go if we really want to relieve traffic congestion. But the political cost is going to be tremendous – much more than a few ridings in Surrey.
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