Business leaders say road pricing should reduce congestion, not raise revenue
Posted May 24, 2018 7:27 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
BURNABY (NEWS 1130) – Some local business leaders say you should get tax breaks to offset fees in any new road pricing scheme for Metro Vancouver.
The Mobility Pricing Independent Commission is releasing its final report to TransLink’s Mayors’ Council this morning and the Burnaby Board of Trade believes tolls on local roads, bridges and tunnels need to be first and foremost about reducing congestion.
“In our opinion, we didn’t want this to be both a system to relieve congestion and a system to raise funds,” says Board CEO Paul Holden.
“We felt that this really needed to look at the congestion choke points in the Lower Mainland and how we can relive the burden on them. We didn’t feel there was much of an appetite at all among the business community for additional taxation or additional fees to be associated with that.,” he tells NEWS 1130.
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The Burnaby Board of Trade struck its own Mobility Pricing Task Force earlier this year, coming up with some key recommendations for the adoption of any regional road pricing scheme.
Chief among them is the reduction of road congestion, while ensuring road pricing is not used as a means to raise additional revenue.
“TransLink’s Mobility Pricing Independent Commission was given the goals of generating revenue, reducing congestion, and promoting fairness. The BBoT disagrees that road pricing can or should simultaneously satisfy those three objectives, and instead should have the primary goal of reducing congestion and maximizing the efficiency of the road network,” reads the task force’s policy bulletin, released earlier this month.
“If the primary goal of road pricing is to reduce congestion and, and not raise revenue, then road pricing can be made revenue-neutral,” it adds.
“The amount of revenue generated through any future road pricing system should be offset by reductions in taxes in other areas such as income taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes or the gas tax. This will allow any future road pricing system to focus on encouraging efficient transportation behaviour as opposed to simply taxing drivers.”
Among other recommendations, the Burnaby Board of Trade also believes variable time-of-day pricing is needed to shift some road usage away from peak travel times, and that the movement of goods and services should be as unimpeded by road pricing as possible.
The Mobility Pricing Independent Commission’s final report goes to the TransLink Mayors’ Council at 10:30 a.m. today.
An interim report earlier this year narrowed the focus to two proposed models of road pricing. They are congestion point charges, which would see fixed tolling points at bridges, tunnels, and intersections and distance-based charges that vary by time or location.
The BBoT has not expressed an opinion on which of the options would be preferable.
