Toll lanes coming to QEW

[rhuarc29]

You don't believe in using prices to match supply and demand. Enough said.

I have agreed up thread that life critical services such as health, police, fire are exceptional. But there is nothing exceptional about roads: pay your way.

I don't believe in setting prices based on supply and demand for critical services is proper in a democracy. I consider the ability to effectively reach your place of employment and therefore provide sustenance for yourself and your family to be a critical service. If it weren't a critical service, the government has no place being involved.

Stated simply, any service the government supplies should be critical to a well-functioning democratic society, and should be offered equally to all individuals regardless of wealth or any other defining factor.

 

[fuji]

No, you don't believe that, you claim to in some desperate attempt to justify your hypocrisy. You have been getting a freebie and you want to keep in getting a freebie.

If you really believed that you would argue the TTC and Go train should be free and that electric power, pretty fucking critical, should be free.

When there are too many people competing for a scarce resource you have two choices: regulate demand through some mechanism, or chaos. The current traffic jam chaos that is the result of abdication of management is unacceptable so we have to talk about regulating access. There is no better way to do that than to let those who will pay the most have priority.

Your alternative, chaos, is not an answer.

 

[TeeJay]

Public money should be spent on projects that benefit the public, aka everyone. I'm opposed to using tax money to build services that only benefit those that can afford to pay, which is exactly what we did for the 407 and what we're going to do again with these toll lanes.

You're joking right? Everything from Bell's infrastructure (phones) to random public funded things (refugees or gay pride) waste tax payers money

Heck the city of Toronto takes millions every year to prop up a decaying TTC system that is spectacularly worse than Vancouver, Montreal, NYC or any other major city I can think of
Why should people who live hundreds of miles from Toronto pay for their pathetic mass transit system (which sucks so bad everyone feels the need to drive making the highway situation worse)

 

[TeeJay]

I don't believe in setting prices based on supply and demand for critical services is proper in a democracy. I consider the ability to effectively reach your place of employment and therefore provide sustenance for yourself and your family to be a critical service. If it weren't a critical service, the government has no place being involved.

Stated simply, any service the government supplies should be critical to a well-functioning democratic society, and should be offered equally to all individuals regardless of wealth or any other defining factor.

An idiot who commutes from a minimum wage job is the class who complains the loudest about tolls
Those who have half-way decent paying jobs have no issue with the 407 (heck last 2 jobs I had even reimbursed me for it)

I question why so many people feel the urge to commute if job pays so little that a $200 toll bill is a pain

 

[AK-47]

I actually support all major GTA highways become toll, that way sunday drivers and all other non-essential travellers will stop clogging up our highways

 

[bver_hunter]

An idiot who commutes from a minimum wage job is the class who complains the loudest about tolls
Those who have half-way decent paying jobs have no issue with the 407 (heck last 2 jobs I had even reimbursed me for it)

I question why so many people feel the urge to commute if job pays so little that a $200 toll bill is a pain

You do not have to travel very far if your bill is just $200 a month. My bill is closer to $400, and the only reason I use it is because I am reimbursed for it. This 407ETR is the most expensive highway in the world and I hardly know anyone who willingly pays for it. Consider it to be more grudgingly as there is no alternative, unless they have to add that extra half hour either way to their commute. This is truly what this highway was not meant to be when the idea was preconceived in the seventies and $104 billion was spent on it's purchase and construction.

 

[fuji]

You do not have to travel very far if your bill is just $200 a month. My bill is closer to $400, and the only reason I use it is because I am reimbursed for it. This 407ETR is the most expensive highway in the world and I hardly know anyone who willingly pays for it. Consider it to be more grudgingly as there is no alternative, unless they have to add that extra half hour either way to their commute. This is truly what this highway was not meant to be when the idea was preconceived in the seventies and $104 billion was spent on it's purchase and construction.

Being reimbursed for it is a good example of how tolls are effectively prioritizing traffic. Your firm thought it was important, multiple people therefore support and are willing to pay to get you through faster.

That is excellent.

 

[bver_hunter]

Being reimbursed for it is a good example of how tolls are effectively prioritizing traffic. Your firm thought it was important, multiple people therefore support and are willing to pay to get you through faster.

That is excellent.

True, as I get to use it for free at the weekends for the few times I have to. I think that the tolls on this highway should have been restricted to being more affordable for the not so high income earners. The taxpayers forked out the 104 billion and as such should have had more say on the annual rate increases. There are drivers who are cheating by covering their number plates before they enter, and then again before they exit the highway. I do not blame them as the rates are too ridiculous and I feel sorry for families trying to make ends meet.

 

[rhuarc29]

No, you don't believe that, you claim to in some desperate attempt to justify your hypocrisy. You have been getting a freebie and you want to keep in getting a freebie.

If you really believed that you would argue the TTC and Go train should be free and that electric power, pretty fucking critical, should be free.

When there are too many people competing for a scarce resource you have two choices: regulate demand through some mechanism, or chaos. The current traffic jam chaos that is the result of abdication of management is unacceptable so we have to talk about regulating access. There is no better way to do that than to let those who will pay the most have priority.

Your alternative, chaos, is not an answer.

I live only a couple blocks away from where I work, so I'm lucky enough not to need to commute on a 400 series highway. On the occasions I travel for work-related items, I get fully compensated.

You accuse others of hypocrisy and are obviously blind to your own. You are quick to label others when you don't understand their beliefs. You claim to know better than myself how and what I think.

You act as if the line between communism and capitalism is drawn at your feet and everyone in front of you must be a communist and only those standing beside or behind you are capitalists. By your own admission, you're not even a pure capitalist. Not that I find that to be a flaw.

You admit that some critical services (like healthcare and police/fire services) should be universally available and not subject to capitalist ideals. I think highway infrastructure is a critical service. Is it really so hard to see, even if you disagree with it, my perspective that we should not be charging for time-of-use? You're damn right I think the TTC and Go-train infrastructure should be paid for by taxes. That is where I draw the line. It doesn't mean it's the correct belief (is there such a thing?), it's merely a POV. TTC fares should go primarily towards operating the mode of transport (power and operator costs), not building or maintaining it. Same goes for the highways: people should pay out-of-pocket for vehicle expenses and fuel costs, not for building and maintaining the infrastructure. That's what our taxes are for.

But the government, being the government, has pushed forth these "not tax" taxes because it is more politically acceptable to do so.

 

[fuji]

So you are OK with road tolls so long as they are used to pay for the cost of maintaining and operating the highway: lights, paint, potholes, resurfacing, snow removal, etc.

Still that fails to solve the problem there are more people who want to use the road than can use the road. Traffic chaos is not a plan.

 

[rhuarc29]

So you are OK with road tolls so long as they are used to pay for the cost of maintaining and operating the highway: lights, paint, potholes, resurfacing, snow removal, etc.

Still that fails to solve the problem there are more people who want to use the road than can use the road. Traffic chaos is not a plan.

Pretty sure there is still a shortage of doctors in this country too, yet we don't grant priority access to those who can pay in order to limit demand. People need healthcare, just as they need to get to and from work, so giving priority to someone else isn't going to limit demand, it'll just further congest the regular route. In other words, a few benefit and the rest suffer.

And no, taxes should go towards maintaining the roads. There should be no tolls.

 

[fuji]

Pretty sure there is still a shortage of doctors in this country too, yet we don't grant priority access to those who can pay in order to limit demand. People need healthcare, just as they need to get to and from work, so giving priority to someone else isn't going to limit demand, it'll just further congest the regular route. In other words, a few benefit and the rest suffer.

We do, however, have a system for prioritizing access to medical specialists. That is why you need a referral from your family doctor, or see a triage nurse. 911 operators also prioritize fire, police, and ambulance responses. In that case we have a system with well defined criteria for prioritizing access: priority is given first to cases involving an airway obstruction, second to cases involving breathing difficulties, next to heavy bleeding or chest pains, etc., it isn't a free for all, health resources are carefully prioritized. Fire and police have similarly prioritized responses. Call in an active shooter and police respond faster than to a shoplifting case.

The highway has no triage protocol to determine who can get on, and you haven't proposed one. You have proposed doing nothing and letting chaos reign. That is not a plan.

We COULD go down the triage route and have people file cases for why they need access to the priority lane, awarding access on a case by case basis from some criteria. That would be like what we do with fire, police, and ambulance.

Instead most would agree that for a resource that is primarily an economic benefit, that serves to move commercial goods and to get people to work, that for such economic resources price is the best way to determine who has the greatest economic priority: raise the price to the point where supply exactly meets demand.

 

[rhuarc29]

Instead most would agree that for a resource that is primarily an economic benefit, that serves to move commercial goods and to get people to work, that for such economic resources price is the best way to determine who has the greatest economic priority: raise the price to the point where supply exactly meets demand.

Somehow I doubt most people agree with that principle when it comes to public enterprises.

 

[fuji]

Somehow I doubt most people agree with that principle when it comes to public enterprises.

People who believe in markets certainly do.

To sum up:

1. We need a way of rationing access to the highway
2. You have ordered no solution
3. Pricing is the preferred market oriented solution

We discussed how health and safety services are rationed through a triage process, and no one is suggesting that method is suitable for highways.

Send pretty clear there is only one valid option on the table here....

 

[rhuarc29]

People who believe in markets certainly do.

To sum up:

1. We need a way of rationing access to the highway
2. You have ordered no solution
3. Pricing is the preferred market oriented solution

We discussed how health and safety services are rationed through a triage process, and no one is suggesting that method is suitable for highways.

Send pretty clear there is only one valid option on the table here....

Except that unless you toll every road, than adding a toll to only one lane, or even an entire highway, doesn't actually limit demand. It just creates more chaos elsewhere. Are you suggesting we toll every roadway?

 

[fuji]

Except that unless you toll every road, than adding a toll to only one lane, or even an entire highway, doesn't actually limit demand. It just creates more chaos elsewhere. Are you suggesting we toll every roadway?

We only need tolls on the highways that are the biggest traffic problem, I would support all lanes tolled but a couple of priority lanes at least gets the high value traffic through quickly.

And while you guys bitch a lot about the toll solution you haven't countered with any better idea. Continuing to increase commute times is not a better idea.

And it is not more chaos, is is an ordered solution. It will be slower for lower priority traffic and faster for higher priority traffic.

 

[rhuarc29]

And it is not more chaos, is is an ordered solution. It will be slower for lower priority traffic and faster for higher priority traffic.

No, it is slower for those who can't/won't pay and faster for those who can/will pay. Simple as that. You're making an assumption that the first group doesn't need to get to where they're going quickly and the second group does; that the first group doesn't benefit our society, but the second does; that one group has more value than the other. But that's all it is, an assumption. The ability to pay a toll does not necessarily equate to priority traffic unless you are defining priority traffic as the ability to pay a toll, in which case your definitions are circular.

If the choice is between an HOV lane or a HOT lane, I'll pick the HOT lane only because it's better at clearing up congestion than an HOV lane. But a regular lane would be most effective. That would lower the overall chaos in all lanes, rather than solve the chaos in one lane while concentrating it in the others. Your solution is not a solution to congestion; it is a solution to expedite supposed priority traffic. However, you incorrectly identify priority traffic.

If there were truly a way to identify and allow actual priority traffic to use an expedited, dedicated lane...then I'd be for it, though even then I don't think a fee should be associated with it. The fact is, priority traffic changes on a daily basis and there is no feasible way to identify it for assumption into this program.

 

[fuji]

No, it is slower for those who can't/won't pay and faster for those who can/will pay.

And those who can/will pay are higher value. Welcome to capitalism.

Simple as that. You're making an assumption that the first group doesn't need to get to where they're going quickly and the second group does

If they REALLY needed to get there quickly they would pay the toll. Everyone driving a car afford the toll if they just HAVE to get there quickly.

 

[rhuarc29]

And those who can/will pay are higher value. Welcome to capitalism.

Stop saying "welcome to capitalism" like I wasn't born here and grown up with it for over a quarter century. I know what pure capitalism is. We don't live in a purely capitalist society (thank god). You obviously feel like we need to move more in that direction, while I believe we are striking close to the right balance now.

 

[fuji]

You don't seem to know. In a market economy price matches supply with those who have the greatest demand.