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A spin on tolling So, I was thinking to myself, "self, what could be done differently in transportation in the Lower Mainland" This is what I do when I'm bored. We are currently ripping up farmland and making a mess in building a brand spanking new highway to the port. Why aren't we tolling it? I get that bridges are expensive and all, but I find it ridiculous that the toll for the PM Bridge when complete is going to be close to $4. From the looks of the highway in Delta, it isn't gonna be cheap. Toll it! It's primarily a truck route, but people will be able to use it. There are alternate routes that people can take. Trucking companies would have a hissy, but ultimately pass the cost to consumer-the logistics companies. Some of those companies would pass on to us here in BC, but a lot of their customers are out of BC, meaning we have a way for other people to pay for our shit. Yes, there is an issue with the costs of our port being higher than, say Seattle possibly driving traffic south, but I don't think a $3 to $4 toll for a large truck is a HUGE driver of bottom line cost. People bring their freight here because they need to bring their freight here. Why wasn't this even discussed? PLUS-with a primarily truck oriented highway, that probably is not going to be concrete, its going to be torn to shit, meaning we are also on the hook for increased maintenance costs. Thoughts? |
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lets say you make 60000 a year, after taxes its 39000, another 12% on everything you buy, 34320, average of 1500 a year for car insurance, 1300 for gas and 1300 for hydro, 3000 for property tax, 1200 for fire insurance brings us down to 26000, not including the cost of gas, phone, cable, maintenance or a mortage. and now they wanna toll bridges? already 60% of your wage is gone in taxes and high living expense requirements, its fucking ludicrous, in reality you only have 35% of what you make, to spend on food and fun when living in BC its getting impossible to live here, they are just taking EVERYTHING they can from us |
I thought this was a spin on trolling.. |
If they want to toll, they should have announced it before a dime of tax payer money was ever used. Trying to make it a toll after you use tax money is just highway robbery. |
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I think what we should adopt is a city centre charge to get into downtown, if we really want to get people using more transit and help pay for our highways. Kind of like London or Singapore. |
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I have no problem with tolls in general. Goldenears bridge is to me a "luxury bridge". Want to go to PM from Langley? Great, you can go the long way for free, or the short way for a cost. The SFPR is a luxury road for most, and a designated truck route for business. Great. It's convenient for some and necessary for work. Charge a toll! I get a little annoyed when you factor in the Port Mann/Goldenears and Patullo bridges all being tolled, effectively creating an entrance fee to the city. All new bridges on this side is already known to put pressure on the tunnel which is at capacity and the Alex Fraser, so expect to see changes there as well. The problem I see is that you have a public/private partnership. They make money on its use. You can't make money if you are sitting next to a free alternative. So what do you do? Get rid of the free alternative of course! I'm not one of those people that just want others to pay for things I use. I live and work in New West. Only use the PM to see family. I can suck up the toll. I just disagree with some of these things in spirit. PLUS-I don't like how the plan for the Prt Mann was changed without consultation. We are going to twin the bridge for 1 billion. Twinning. Twin it. Oh, the company said they could just build a new one for 2.5 so we went with that. Fuck it-its only money. The first rule of government spending. Why buy one when you can buy 2 at twice the price? Besides, everyone knows that this will solve nothing of the bottleneck situation. New roads inspire new cars. The bottleneck will just switch to different areas-such as the tunnel and probably 1st avenue. |
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In a condo, right next to work. You take a bus or bike to work. You buy groceries that are not prepared to avoid HST. Your commute takes effort, so you don't need the gym. Your smart meter tells you that doing your laundry at 4 in the morning is cheapest, to avoid load in the system. You toast at 5am and dinner is in the oven at 3am. What's the problem? |
^ you gonna have a wife and 3 kids and do all that? while living in a condo? good luck to you then. What a fun life that would be, id rather pay the taxes and atleast have a car and a house, atleast that way id be able to take my kids to playland without having them sit beside crack heads on public transit. |
Hence the sarcasm in my post ;) It's an unsustainable idea for most people, but really that is the only way to live to avoid all the 'new' taxes brought out lately. |
oh lol I thought you were being serious, I cant tell sarcasm in posts |
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tolling the ports / containers? some mayor was complaining that the govt was upgrading bridges/roads to the port (think its prince rupert) and passing the costs onto residents when they should be setting a small toll on the containers instead as other ports, elsewhere, do |
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I don't have statistics on it, but a large majority go straight to rail and never get touched. I don't know if you'd want to tag them with a fee or not. I don't know...hit them all, hit the ones that touch a truck, hit them with a toll...I don't know, pick one. But, it will never happen as it might impede business, and we all know that the gov't likes to kiss that ass. How do I send these things to the kids at the art gallery? |
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I think the mayor (though she is a total fucking moron) was wanting to collect a toll from the trucks using it as it was built specifically for them. Don't quote me on her opinion though....whenever she speaks, I hear ringing in my ears. |
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And for those people who live along the Hwy 1 in cities like Langley, Aldergrove, Abbotsford, etc, they're pretty much all but forced to pay a toll, lest they want to take yet another hour out of their day to cross the Alex Fraser or Patello. I'll grant that tolling the Golden Ears was fine; it replaced the rather enjoyable, yet albeit insanely slow, Albion Ferry, but because it introduced a new way of getting to a city that otherwise would have taken at least half an hour to, it's fine. As you said, it's basically a luxury tax. However, replacing and tolling an existing route that many people have taken for decades and are otherwise unable to avoid is ludicrous. At the nonce, it doesn't affect me since I live within a ten minute drive from my work, and I've more or less adjusted my driving pattern to simply avoid Hwy1 now due to construction... but back when I used to go to Capilano College and worked in Vancouver, there would have been no feasible alternative to Hwy1. Quote:
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Traffic is light on the Goldenears. Why? We didn't really 'need' that bridge. It will definitely inspire growth in PM and Langley as the crossing brings them closer together. But no one takes the Goldenears as an alternative to the Port Mann short of having business in Meadows. So you take out the free alternative. The first thing you'll notice is that traffic will jump on the Goldenears. Both costing equal, there will be no incentive to avoid it. Then, we'll start on replacing the Patullo Bridge. You know, the one that actually needed replacement. Why? Because its more free competition. I can tell you right now, living in New West I would cut through Surrey to get home. It actually is not that much longer. So these tolls are all about eliminating free competition to a private business of providing bridges. Meanwhile, we build a massive highway in Delta for the express purpose of serving business-which I am not against. I just think there is a method of collecting money there that makes more sense when you look at the cost model associated with living in the Lower Mainland. I see a toll of $2 being more reasonable to cross a bridge for 30 seconds(20 seconds in my car ;) |
If I ever bother with starting a family, I'll go back to Alberta. Sick of taxes, sick of bullshit politics, sick of high gas prices, sick of c-lais and gang crimes, sick of retardedly high housing prices, sick of toll bridges and the idea of tolls altogether. Seriously, fuck this city and it's rapid expansion projects, it's moving too fast and it's becoming near impossible to survive without giving up everything that matters to you. I love the atmosphere and the lack of snow, but this shit is really building up to a melting point. |
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What do you exactly do for a living? Tradespeople on RS seem to be doing well. |
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