Last week, New York launched congestion pricing in a bid to improve its increasingly intolerable traffic woes. The tax, which dings drivers in the downtown core for $9 during peak hours using licence plate recognition cameras, is similar to others implemented in car-clustered cities like London and Singapore. According to experts, Toronto needs to consider following suit. “This problem is not something we can build our way out of,” says Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto, who believes that a similar—although not identical—model would work here. Yes, times are tough and nobody likes a new tax, but Siemiatycki argues that the cost of the alternative (read: never-ending gridlock hell) is a lot steeper.
New York launched its congestion tax last week. How does this concept work exactly? Congestion charges have been around for decades and are based on the pretty simple idea of supply and demand: if you charge for something, people will use it less often. So, if we’re looking at areas where traffic congestion is a problem, the idea is that by attaching a fee, you will end up with fewer drivers on the road. You will also end up with revenue to help fund the upkeep of those roads and alternative transit options for people who choose not to drive. New York is the latest city to introduce this kind of pricing, but London has one, Copenhagen has one. I believe the first was in Singapore back in the ’70s. In other parts of the world, there is a different mentality that isn’t based on the assumption that roads are free. Instead it’s the idea that you’re paying for a service, which is being able to get to a destination in a reasonable amount of time.
In New York, the cost is $9 a day to drive downtown between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. How did they land on the specifics? Some of it is economics and some of it is political science. The economics are that you try to set a price that will have enough of an impact that some people will choose options other than driving, but one that isn’t so high that no one will drive. But then there is what’s politically feasible. In New York, the fee was going to be $15, but there was a lot of pushback, and the mayor even paused the initiative before the election, which is very telling. Even in cities where similar measures have been successful, there was resistance at the start. Nobody welcomes having to pay for something that used to be free, particularly in the current economic climate, where people are struggling with the cost of living.
You sound like you’re talking yourself out of congestion pricing. The problem tends to be that these charges are extremely visible, so you get this visceral reaction. But, in reality, people are already paying for congestion in time, in fuel consumption, in quality of life. That extra half hour congestion adds to your commute every day? Even at minimum wage, that’s worth $8. Think about people who provide trades and services. If you’re a plumber who makes money based on how many appointments you can book in a day, the time you waste sitting in traffic has a very direct cost. When you think about all of the goods that get transported around the city every day—groceries, building materials—we are paying a premium on everything based on time wasted in traffic. In cities like New York and Toronto, we’ve become so used to this level of congestion that we think it’s normal. It’s only when you look at the international ratings, where Toronto consistently ranks among the worst cities in the world, that you realize it doesn’t have to be like this.
Traffic in Toronto wasn’t always such an epic disaster. Where did we go wrong? We missed a generation of building public transit and accommodating growth in lower-density areas, which created communities that are very car oriented. But not all of this is based on what we’ve done wrong. People need to keep in mind that the reason cities have to deal with high congestion is because a lot of people want to be there. Congestion is horrible to sit in, but it’s also a sign of desirability, of economic prosperity. When you consider the only times when traffic in the city has improved—the financial crisis of 2008 and the pandemic—you might conclude that we’re better off with traffic. But congestion needs to be managed.
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And a congestion tax is the best way forward? I think so. The evidence is pretty indisputable in other places where similar initiatives have been implemented. Just a week in, New York is already seeing positive results in terms of fewer cars on the road. Though we might opt for a slightly different system here—less placing a border around the downtown, which is what they’ve done in New York, and more putting tolls on our inner highways: the Gardiner, the DVP, the 401 in that centre strip and the 427. There are a few reasons why this makes sense. For starters, we have existing transit options for people going back and forth between the city and the suburbs. It’s those lateral commutes that are a killer. And we want to be careful about anything that might dissuade people from going downtown while that part of the city is still bouncing back from Covid.
The New York transit commission has estimated that the new tax will eventually take 80,000 drivers off the road downtown. Are those people opting for transit? Working from home? Making fewer trips? It’s all of those things. In terms of breaking it down, that’s what they will be studying to inform future policy. Definitely the goal is to get more people on public transit, which will improve based on increased ridership, on funding generated by the tax and on decreased congestion. We should be able to run public transit along major arteries like the DVP, the 401 and the 404, but there is just no way to make that happen with the current traffic conditions. There is also the possibility of more carpooling and of people becoming more discerning about when they decide to drive. Maybe you’re late to pick up your kid at daycare and they charge $1 a minute, so in that instance paying the tax might make sense, but on another day you may have less urgency and opt not to drive.
So it’s not just a situation where wealthy people will continue to drive and people who can’t afford to won’t? I know that people often talk about “roads for the rich” or “Lexus lanes,” but I think that is a distraction from a conversation about ensuring equity as something that is considered from the very start and not tacked on at the end. The investment back into transit is an important piece of that puzzle. In London, they have used some of the revenue from tolls to freeze bus fares, which makes sense.
Okay, but you’re still going to have some people who don’t live near accessible transit and who can’t afford to pay $9 to get to work. So what kinds of initiatives can be introduced so that those people don’t get left behind? What can the government do? What can workplaces do? I don’t have the answers, but these things don’t come together overnight.
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Has Toronto ever flirted with a congestion tax in the past? More than flirted. Our city council voted in favour of congestion tolls in 2017, but the way it works in Canada is that these things need provincial approval, and ultimately the plan got nixed under Kathleen Wynne in the lead up to an election.
If we can’t get approval from a left-leaning premier, I don’t love our chances with Doug “I Heart Cars” Ford. Oh, definitely. The Ford government has really doubled down on this issue: they’ve removed existing tolls in the eastern part of the GTA, promised no new tolls, abolished the vehicle registration tax, frozen the gas tax. They’re doing whatever they can to show support for motorists, and I think we have to acknowledge that it’s been a very popular strategy—particularly in the 905 region—and it’s understandable. But I guess the question is whether congestion has gotten any better under this government, and I think the answer is pretty clear.
Any thoughts on Ford’s tunnel under the 401 plan? I mean, who hasn’t dreamed of a secret tunnel while they’re sitting on the highway? But it doesn’t make sense. How are you getting on and off the route to this tunnel? It’s just moving the bottleneck from one place to another. It’s hugely expensive, and it doesn’t address the underlying problem of too many cars, not enough space.
You have two minutes to argue your case to the premier. What do you tell him? I would say that, if you want to support Ontario motorists, a congestion tax is how you do it. Congestion is having a huge economic cost on our region. Building more roads has not worked in other jurisdictions, and it’s not going to solve congestion here. The investments the province is making in public transit are a good start—the Ontario Line, rapid transit in Mississauga, investments into GO Transit—but they would work best coupled with road charges. This region needs to be able to get moving. Already we are the butt of jokes from Tom Cruise, from pop stars who can’t get to their concerts, from sports teams that have to get off their buses and walk to the stadium. It’s not a good look for our city on the international stage, and I think that’s something our premier cares about.
Olivia Chow just announced a $3 million investment in more traffic agents at busy intersections to combat our city’s traffic woes. Will this help? I would say that traffic agents are an effective way to fight gridlock as opposed to congestion. Gridlock is when you have cars blocking intersections after trying to make a red light, or the kind of traffic that piles up around construction sites. We have seen evidence that shows us traffic agents can be a very effective way to keep traffic flowing in those situations. But congestion is sitting on the DVP, with so many cars being funnelled to the same off-ramps that nobody is moving. Traffic agents won’t do anything for that bigger-picture issue.
Short of a visionary new premier who doesn’t care about getting re-elected, is there any way this happens in the next five or ten years? I think it’s possible that Torontonians will continue to be frustrated to the point that they will finally have to say enough, and then maybe the political context will change and we’ll get some movement toward actual solutions. I believe it will happen. People are fed up already, so it’s really just a question of how much more we can take.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”