PST hike of 0.5% proposed for Metro Vancouver transit referendum

[meme405]

Originally Posted by tiger_handheld

Isn't that like letting the the fox watch the hen house?

Watch suits recently?

Originally Posted by Tapioca

I find it very ironic that people are calling Patterson's appointment stupid when this is exactly the type of thing Translink should be doing to save money. In this thread, we have people calling for the selling of naming rights to stations to big companies and we also have people calling on Translink to become more like a private company.

So what if Patterson gets a fast-track on land development near a station? It's better than paying some fat cat executive a salary, after all. No one works for free.

Pattison*

Originally Posted by SoNaRWaVe

@meme: we don't get to choose and pick where our tax dollars go to work. this pst would affect everyone. meaning that surrey tax payers money would probably go building into the future broadway corridor. it goes both ways.

I don't think you understand. I'm saying that there is a ton of people within the valley, who plan to vote yes to this plan because they perceive that their bus service is shitty, and they don't see enough expansion. Translink is playing on that and promising a 10% service expansion in that area if they vote yes.

That's great for those people, but my bus service here in the rural areas of north van, like lynn valley, and deep cove, is just as crappy, and we don't get fuck all?

So for the exact opposite reason that those people are voting yes, I will vote NO, because my service is guaranteed to remain just as shitty.

Further to that:

Same goes for my roads, surrey gets this brand new bridge, and plans for the pattullo bridge to be replaced, one of the next big projects for transit would be the extension of the skytrain futher into surrey, the SFPR was already completed, etc.

I havn't seen FUCK ALL here on the north shore. So again, the valley people can vote yes for this, because the rest of the province will end up paying an extra .5% just to see surrey get more infrastructure, but I'm gonna vote NO until I am ensured that the rest of the municipalities and province will see their fair share of this money.

If it was a one time thing, or something like that, that's find (think evergreen), every community will get funds put into it once in awhile to get some new infrastructure. But Surrey is just an ongoing problem, one has been a massive drain on Translinks funds for like 10 years. Their ever incessant need for huge plots of lands makes their road systems huge, and makes transit more and more impossible to manage within the community. If they want to continue living in huge houses with huge lots, and continue to expand the necessary area of service they need to realize that they have to pay for the infrastructure related to that expansion directly.

So tax fucking Surrey directly for their transit needs. Or at least promise to fix some of my issues as well. Otherwise along with the variety of other reasons to vote NO, such as lack of accountability, lack of transparency, this issue just goes up on the list for me as another reason to vote a big fuck you to translink.

Spoiler!

EDIT: North Van should just join forces with West Van and say fuck you to translink.

re-join the district and the city, since that split was stupid as all hell. Ditch the RCMP and put in our own Police force, and just expand the blue bus system with the help of west van to provide service to all of the north shore.

[Timpo]

i dont think this is going to be fair for people who do not live in metro vancouver

[Manic!]

Patterson is a good choice because he knows how to run a successful business and turn a profit. He will cut down on a lot of waste.

[CRS]

FFS, guys.

The guy's name is...

Jim Pattison

Pattison

Pattison

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by meme405

I don't think you understand. I'm saying that there is a ton of people within the valley, who plan to vote yes to this plan because they perceive that their bus service is shitty, and they don't see enough expansion. Translink is playing on that and promising a 10% service expansion in that area if they vote yes.

That's great for those people, but my bus service here in the rural areas of north van, like lynn valley, and deep cove, is just as crappy, and we don't get fuck all?

So for the exact opposite reason that those people are voting yes, I will vote NO, because my service is guaranteed to remain just as shitty.

Further to that:

Same goes for my roads, surrey gets this brand new bridge, and plans for the pattullo bridge to be replaced, one of the next big projects for transit would be the extension of the skytrain futher into surrey, the SFPR was already completed, etc.

I havn't seen FUCK ALL here on the north shore. So again, the valley people can vote yes for this, because the rest of the province will end up paying an extra .5% just to see surrey get more infrastructure, but I'm gonna vote NO until I am ensured that the rest of the municipalities and province will see their fair share of this money.

If it was a one time thing, or something like that, that's find (think evergreen), every community will get funds put into it once in awhile to get some new infrastructure. But Surrey is just an ongoing problem, one has been a massive drain on Translinks funds for like 10 years. Their ever incessant need for huge plots of lands makes their road systems huge, and makes transit more and more impossible to manage within the community. If they want to continue living in huge houses with huge lots, and continue to expand the necessary area of service they need to realize that they have to pay for the infrastructure related to that expansion directly.

So tax fucking Surrey directly for their transit needs. Or at least promise to fix some of my issues as well. Otherwise along with the variety of other reasons to vote NO, such as lack of accountability, lack of transparency, this issue just goes up on the list for me as another reason to vote a big fuck you to translink.

Spoiler!

EDIT: North Van should just join forces with West Van and say fuck you to translink.

re-join the district and the city, since that split was stupid as all hell. Ditch the RCMP and put in our own Police force, and just expand the blue bus system with the help of west van to provide service to all of the north shore.

Surrey is where the growth is, while North Van is only growing in areas like the Quay. Does it make sense for service to expand there when the chance of cost recovery is nil?

You blame people in Surrey for wanting the taxpayers of Metro Van to subsidize their suburban lifestyle, yet the same type of lots and zoning exists in many areas of the North Shore. If you were running Translink like a business, where would you expand?

[m3thods]

On the news piece outlining Pattison's appointment, he made it clear that he doesn't take transit. He does however care about the well-being of roads in and around the GVRD.

I'm not supporting the tax, but some people need to stop thinking that there's any correlation between Pattison and supporting transit. He's apparently in it to get the road infrastructure expanded and upgraded.

Personally if I was him I'd just be taking the helicopter to and fro in the city.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

Surrey is where the growth is, while North Van is only growing in areas like the Quay. Does it make sense for service to expand there when the chance of cost recovery is nil?

You blame people in Surrey for wanting the taxpayers of Metro Van to subsidize their suburban lifestyle, yet the same type of lots and zoning exists in many areas of the North Shore. If you were running Translink like a business, where would you expand?

Actually not van has grown almost 8% since 2006. Surrey is sitting at like 15% in the same period.

(per census information).

If you think the Quay is the only growing part of north van you must not live here.

Also sorry but North Vancouver does not have the same lot sizes as surrey for the most part, and if those that are are located in areas with little to no access to transit and shitty roads that never get cleared when it snows. Also those lots costs millions, if not 10's of millions. Which means that those people pay 10 times what people in surrey pay in property tax to make up their difference. While those in surrey pay relatively nothing, cause they are balling like $14 baller.

Spoiler!

Also if I ran translink I would expand the system where I live...

Spoiler!

Actually in all honesty, if I ran translink as a business rather than a crown corporation who is supposed to provide equal access for all. I'd nix all the useless routes in surrey and tell them to fuck off, have you been out there recently? Areas like surrey are the reason translink isn't profitable, large rural areas are where they lose money. Buses in downtown, burnaby and vancouver are most of the time profitable.

So infact the biggest business case can be made for why to tell surrey people to go fuck off.

Anyway this is getting redundant, I shared my opinion based on my perspective of things, it can be right or wrong, doesn't matter, that's what makes it my opinion, and my view living in north van obviously makes me extremely biased.

I'm just pointing out that if people in surrey think that things are all rosie and great here in the other areas its just as shitty. Translink sucks across the board. It's not just a localized failure to meet the demand in surrey.

[68style]

I fucking hate Surrey (work there) but I have to disagree that it's all given to them... save for the Alex Fraser, all the methods of getting there by car from the mainland will be via toll bridge eventually (assuming the Massey Tunnel replacement is tolled) so it's not free. North shore got the Sea2Sky upgraded for free with no tolls which seems to be a very obvious place to have a toll.......... and they have tried to upgrade the Causeway/Lions Gate but blame the environmental and native groups for that not happening.

[Tone Loc]

Originally Posted by m3thods

On the news piece outlining Pattison's appointment, he made it clear that he doesn't take transit. He does however care about the well-being of roads in and around the GVRD.

Personally, I think that line was said explicitly to draw in the significant percentage of people in the lower mainland who don't use transit, and use that platform to justify voting "No" to the referendum. What the "Yes" side is doing by promoting Pattison's side is showing people that one does need to be a frequent transit user of Transit to recognize the benefits of more people taking it. What a lot of people fail to understand is that more people taking transit = less cars on the road = less congestion for those who need/prefer to drive their cars. The fact that there will now be independent oversight regarding how the funds are used - especially since the head is a "good businessman" who has proven time and time again that he knows fiscally responsible ways of running a business - is really swaying my vote to the "Yes" side...

[supafamous]

https://darylvsworld.wordpress.com/2...-inefficiency/

[tiger_handheld]

Just read that Dave Suzuki is on the YES boat.

Funny thing is he says that there will be independent auditors to account for the cash spend. How about we hire some independent auditors now and figure out where cash is going now?

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by tiger_handheld

Just read that Dave Suzuki is on the YES boat.

That's it, that's all I need to change my vote to NO.

[CRS]

Lots of fear campaigns on the radio makes me want to vote "no" so much more.

[CL typeS]

Give them an inch, and they will take a mile is what pretty much sums up what translink and the government do

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by tiger_handheld

Just read that Dave Suzuki is on the YES boat.

Funny thing is he says that there will be independent auditors to account for the cash spend. How about we hire some independent auditors now and figure out where cash is going now?

Erm...it's right here:

http://www.translink.ca/en/About-Us/...e-Reports.aspx

http://www.translink.ca/-/media/Docu...march_2012.pdf

Done by an external 3rd party.

There's also an internal audit available:

http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/ocg/ias/pdf...sLink_2012.pdf

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by supafamous

Erm...it's right here:

http://www.translink.ca/en/About-Us/...e-Reports.aspx

http://www.translink.ca/-/media/Docu...march_2012.pdf

Done by an external 3rd party.

There's also an internal audit available:

http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/ocg/ias/pdf...sLink_2012.pdf

DAMN YOU, muddling the issue with the facts! We can't have facts, facts make things boring!

[saucywoman]

Smyth: Jim Pattison appointed to rescue TransLink, but it turns out he doesn't have any 'real power'

No suprise, Pattison's not being given any real power.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!

It’s not Superman, but it’s the next best thing! It’s Jimmy Pattison, flying in to rescue Metro Vancouver’s beleaguered transit tax plebiscite.

Or will he?

The beloved billionaire will oversee a new “accountability committee” to ensure money raised by the proposed half-point increase in the provincial sales tax (PST) is spent “wisely and responsibly.”

The surprise announcement came from Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who hopes Pattison’s spectacular business career, generous philanthropy and spotless personal reputation will all work wonders.

“We have heard loud and clear from the people of Metro Vancouver,” Robertson said.

“They want assurances that the money collected from the PST increase will go to pay for critical transportation and transit improvements.”

Is this the game-changer the Yes side needs to win the looming mail-in plebiscite on the new tax, which would see the PST rise to 7.5 per cent within Metro Vancouver?

Robertson and other Metro mayors sure hope so. Ballots are set to be mailed out to 1.5 million voters in just one week. And the Yes side has so far been trailing badly in the polls.

There’s no doubt Pattison brings a positive image to a Yes campaign weighed down by the negative image projected by TransLink.

But the 86-year-old business titan is not being brought in to fix the broken public-transit company.

He won’t be getting the overdue and over-budget Compass Card system working, for example. Or fixing any broken escalators. Or cracking down on rampant fare evasion. Or firing any overpaid executives.

“If he was being given real teeth to go in there and fix all these problems, that would be great,” said Jordan Bateman, head of the No campaign.

“But he’s not. He’s being brought in because of his clean image and positive brand. He’s not being given any real power.”

Pattison’s official job description says he will head a committee that will “review, approve and publicize” expenditures contained in the mayors’ transit and transportation plan.

The committee will “publicly validate” that the $250 million to be raised by the additional sales tax each year is spent only on the mayors’ plan and that the money is spent “wisely and responsibly.”

The terms of reference raise a lot of questions. But there are not a lot of answers.

For example, how long will Pattison serve in this role?

“We haven’t worked through the detailed aspects of that,” said Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore, adding it’s also unknown how many other committee members will be appointed or how long they will serve.

Moore said Pattison will work for free and “it is not our intent” to pay the other unnamed committee members.

As for powers, Moore said Pattison’s committee will work with independent auditors who will examine the spending in detail, and the committee will have authority to question any spending before they approve it.

So I asked Moore what would happen if Pattison and his committee saw something they didn’t like.

“They would report that to both the mayors’ council and to the TransLink board and make suggestions on how that should be either adjusted — fixed — before any further expenditures occurred,” Moore told me.

I also asked Moore about the potential for real or perceived conflict-of-interest.

Pattison has massive business holdings in Metro Vancouver — car dealerships, grocery stores, an outdoor sign company and more.

What happens if he’s asked to approve a transportation expenditure that has an impact on one of his businesses, or one of his competitors’ businesses? Would Pattison have to recuse himself?

Moore didn’t see a problem.

“He’s not creating policy or developing the plan,” Moore said, though he “assumes” Pattison and his committee will be covered by TransLink’s internal conflict-of-interest rules. (TransLink declined to comment on that, saying they are not involved with setting up Pattison’s committee or how it will operate.)

None of this is reassuring to the hard-core opponents of the proposed transit tax.

“It all sounds very loosey-goosey to me,” said Richard Truscott, local vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

“There’s a real lack of detail and it just seems like they’re making it up as they go along.”

Truscott, whose group represents small-business owners, called Pattison’s sudden appointment “a Hail Mary pass” by a Yes side that knows it’s running behind.

Small-business operators in Metro Vancouver worry about the impact of a regional sales-tax hike and simply don’t trust TransLink to spend the additional money wisely, Truscott said.

“On balance, most of our members believe there’s enough money in the system already and don’t think shovelling good money after bad makes sense.”

I’d say a lot of people feel the same way, making the sales pitch for the Yes side a difficult one.

Enter Pattison, the best salesman of them all, though I’m not sure even he can close this deal.

[tiger_handheld]

Originally Posted by supafamous

Erm...it's right here:

http://www.translink.ca/en/About-Us/...e-Reports.aspx

http://www.translink.ca/-/media/Docu...march_2012.pdf

Done by an external 3rd party.

There's also an internal audit available:

http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/ocg/ias/pdf...sLink_2012.pdf

yes but those are reviews and not audited. i'm talking full blown audit of translinks financials - not just some pussy review of the organizational efficiencies done by another government crony.

Engage like a KPMG or PWC and do some actual grunt work by digging into boxes. There is a reason why companies listed on securities exchanges require an audit and not a review. Why can't taxpayer funds be held to the same standard.

LOL an internal audit? That like asking yourself to make your own exam - hows that independent?

[tonyzoomzoom]

Originally Posted by tiger_handheld

Just read that Dave Suzuki is on the YES boat.

Funny thing is he says that there will be independent auditors to account for the cash spend. How about we hire some independent auditors now and figure out where cash is going now?

Having an audit to show where the $$ is spent is not as helpful as one may think. For example, if the audit shows that $400m went to set up the turnstiles. Is that good or bad?

It's the prudency of the spend that really matters - as in, it should've only taken $100m to install the turnstiles.

So even if promised audits show that all of the new taxes went to the intended projects, it will not speak to whether there was any unnecessary wastage of $$.

Translink needs to open its books like BCHydro and ICBC for proper public scrutiny.

[inv4zn]

The Yes side is acting like Charles in charge lol

Ignore any and every valid concern/argument, and just keep spewing BS, and automatically label anyone who disagrees a zioni..no, a selfish asshole.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by tonyzoomzoom

Having an audit to show where the $$ is spent is not as helpful as one may think. For example, if the audit shows that $400m went to set up the turnstiles. Is that good or bad?

It's the prudency of the spend that really matters - as in, it should've only taken $100m to install the turnstiles.

So even if promised audits show that all of the new taxes went to the intended projects, it will not speak to whether there was any unnecessary wastage of $$.

Translink needs to open its books like BCHydro and ICBC for proper public scrutiny.

I agree with you entirely. At the same time, I view having an external audit conducted by an independent 3rd party as something of a first step towards accountability. Most of the public may not know whether $400M or $200M is the right price for a certain project, but generally, policy critics from somewhere will have a better idea, and they will publish their findings through and open medium. Then citizens can start evaluating whether there is wastage or not.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by Traum

I agree with you entirely. At the same time, I view having an external audit conducted by an independent 3rd party as something of a first step towards accountability. Most of the public may not know whether $400M or $200M is the right price for a certain project, but generally, policy critics from somewhere will have a better idea, and they will publish their findings through and open medium. Then citizens can start evaluating whether there is wastage or not.

This.

Having an audit to determine exactly where funds went is just the 1st step. The next logical step is to hire someone like me, or various other companies who specialize in the analytical side of construction and figure out exactly where the funds for that individual project went, and where money could be saved.

And yes there are people who specialize in exactly this type of thing.

Picture it this way, a guy wants to build a house, he puts together a budget of 500k and a timeline of 6 months. A year later once the house is complete he realizes he is 100% over budget and 100% past his schedule.

Now if that guy was building one house form himself, not a big deal, but the problem starts when that guy is someone like polygon and they don't build one house, they build 100's. Then that person is gonna want to know exactly why this project went off the rails, so that he can avoid those same errors in the future. That's where I come in.

Now take it one step further and replace that cheap piece of shit house, with an infrastructure project, or an industrial project, now all of a sudden you aren't talking about a million dollars you are talking in the billions of dollars. When you are on the hook for an extra 500 million, your gonna want to know where the fuck your money went.

These people exist for all sorts of costs, I know people that specialize in operating costs analytics, or specialize in lowering overhead for companies, etc.

[SoNaRWaVe]

anyone noticed the people standing outside skytrain stations trying to get people to vote yes?

[Mr.HappySilp]

Originally Posted by SoNaRWaVe

anyone noticed the people standing outside skytrain stations trying to get people to vote yes?

I did lol and I told him I will be voting no he look piss lol and keep trying to change my mind.

[Mr.HappySilp]

Road pricing still on the table: mayor
Pitched originally as a way to raise $250 million per year for transit improvements, the comprehensive road pricing strategy proposed by the Mayors’ Council is still going ahead – despite being pushed to the background by the .5% regional sales tax that’s now the subject of the plebiscite.

And it’s being envisioned as a way to both eliminate bridge tolls and reduce gas taxes.

The strategy to fund the $7.5 billion transit wish list had earlier counted on the region’s share of the B.C. Carbon Tax being diverted to fund transit. About $110 million would have come from that funding in the first year, and with the help of the road pricing system, eventually reaching $390 million – using 2015 dollars – in new annual funding by year 12 of the plan. This would’ve required $250 million to come from the B.C. Carbon Tax and another $250 million to come from road pricing.

But the provincial government rejected the use of the B.C. Carbon Tax and the funding focus quickly turned to the sale tax.

The Mayors’ Council says this new regional sales tax would provide $250 million per year, starting from year one, and would eliminate the need for the staged funding envisioned in the earlier plan.

Tolling is profitable

Charging drivers for roads is no longer needed to generate the money to fund transit expansion, according to Mayors’ Council spokesman Greg Moore, the mayor of Port Coquitlam. The plan, however, remains “committed to implementing comprehensive mobility pricing on the road network as the most fair and effective way to reduce congestion.”

What will be different, Moore said, is where the revenue generated from road pricing – basically a toll to use certain sections of roadway – will go. And the revenue potential is huge. According to the Mayors’ Council’s calculations, just five cents charged to drivers for every kilometre travelled on Metro Vancouver roads could generate $600 million in a single year. Generating that same kind of revenue would require a 1.3% increase to the regional sales tax.

Moore said any dollars from the road pricing strategy will go directly to getting rid of existing tolls on Lower Mainland bridges – both provincial bridges and TransLink’s crossings. Currently, only the Port Mann Bridge and the Golden Ears Bridges are tolled, but tolls have already been discussed for the Pattullo and Massey Tunnel replacements.

To offset just the tolls currently collected on Golden Ears and Port Mann – both have seen lower-than-expected traffic volumes since opening – road pricing will have to generate at least $136 million per year, the combined amount the bridges generated in the latest fiscal period. The figure, however, does not account for how much it costs to operate the bridges’ tolling systems, their capital costs and their repayments.

The ambition for road toll revenues doesn’t stop there. Fuel tax dollars going to TransLink have declined as vehicles come more efficient and fewer people drive. If bridge tolls can be offset with mobility pricing, the mayors would use the money to start taking numbers off the 17-cent TransLink fuel tax bills per litre charged to anyone filling up in the region.

Under existing revenues, the 17 cents of fuel tax bring in about $337 million per year to TransLink – about three cents of tolling per kilometre, if all drivers were billed to drive.

The current plan

Meanwhile, Moore said it hasn’t been decided how the local road pricing scheme would work. One consideration is what provincial Transportation Minister Todd Stone, who has committed to reviewing the provincial tolling strategy, would say about replacing tolling revenues on the Port Mann Bridge and Massey Tunnel replacement bridge – both under provincial jurisdiction.

Regional mayors are also looking to make their own changes to existing pricing systems, changes that take into account the region’s location as Canada’s largest port, and its massive geographical area, for example.

“What if you said to the trucking industry, ‘You can use the road network for free from midnight to 6 a.m.? But if you use it in the morning – it’s going to cost a lot more.’”

Another potential is that residents would drive free, as long as it’s within a certain distance of home, or implementing road pricing but keeping a reduced toll, say 25 cents, on the newest bridges, he said.

“We’re looking at a very high level, conceptual side of this – not into any of the details on how to actually implement that,” he said.

Moore and staff at TransLink stressed road pricing will not be considered a new tax, but rather a tax “shift” that would mean as roads are implemented, other tax revenues, like fuel taxes and bridge tolls, are reduced.

In a statement, Ministry of Transportation staff said it’s “premature to discuss removing tolls and road pricing.” The statement also pointed to a conflict in the mayors’ current plan, saying that it “includes replacing the Pattullo Bridge and financing it by tolls.”

Stone has said previously that he would be reviewing the provincial tolling policy, which currently states that there must be at least one untolled route available for commuters when planning tolls. When pressed, the ministry provided a short statement from the minister.

“The plebiscite, which includes a toll option, is currently underway,” Stone said in his statement.

“Once the results are known, the ministry will be in a better position to review its tolling policy.”

For now, staff at local municipalities and TransLink say they are ready to work on the road pricing strategy when the referendum concludes – the plan remains for road pricing to be implemented no longer than eight years from now.

International road charge options explored

To plan for a Metro Vancouver road pricing system, TransLink has cast its eyes towards tolling systems in London, Singapore and closer to home, Oregon – the state will be launching a road pricing strategy in July to bill the first 5,000 test drivers 1.5 cents per mile. All of these drivers would receive rebates from their motor fuel taxes instead. Miles driven on private property are also exempt from the charge, but there will be a 2,000 USD fine in place to make sure people tell the truth when reporting road usage.

Oregon actually started exploring the concept back in 2001, with its first road test conducted in 2006 using 285 vehicles equipped with global positioning systems. While the test was called a success by Oregon’s preliminary findings report, privacy concerns around equipping personal vehicles with GPS, how expensive the process might be, and technology changes, put and end to its proliferation – until 2010, when pressure from declining tax revenues reopened the conversation.

But this time, when the second pilot project began for 88 drivers in November 2012, there was no longer a GPS requirement. Government instead contracted two companies to develop a smartphone app that connects with a “dongle” to count mileage, and two “mileage reporting devices” that attached to the car – one with GPS and one without.

The next year, road pricing for the 5,000 drivers was approved, with July 1, 2015 chosen as the launch date. The current cost of the program is 8.4 million USD, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation. Drivers are expected to use similar mileage reporting systems as the ones used in 2012.

The U.K. congestion ‘zone’

Across the ocean in London, England, is a congestion charge introduced in 2003 and still going strong. At a cost of 160 million GBP to set up, the area covered by London’s congestion charge is small, just 19 square kilometres in the heart of the city – compared to Metro Vancouver’s geographic size of 2,882 square kilometres.

Only 20% of the budget was actually spent on the infrastructure and operations itself – approximately half of the budget was spent on logistics to implement the zone. Today, according to Transport for London, there are 646 cameras inside the London Congestion Zone, each using automatic licence plate reader technology to log vehicles in the congestion tax zone.

It has paid off. In the first 10 years of operations, the scheme has generated 1.3 billion GBP of net revenue, all of which is re-invested back into transportation improvements for the city. Toll rates have risen dramatically, however. The current tolling rate is 11.50 GBP per day for non-residents, more than double the 5 GBP per day charged at outset, though residents can get a 90% discount by registering for 20 days at a time.

Transport for London says the tolls have reduced the number of cars entering the zone by 60,000 per day, but congestion levels have returned “close to pre-charging levels,” according to a January 2014 impact assessment report.

Singapore $— four decades of tolling

But the oldest, and arguably most developed road pricing model in the world is found in southeast Asia. The city-state of Singapore began its road pricing system in 1975 by creating a zone similar to London’s congestion zone, enforced by police officers at entry points. Vehicles had to display a licence.

In 1998, an “electronic road pricing system” was created at a cost of 200 million SGD using “gantries” across the city – overhead bars above arterials fitted with radio antennae – that connected to in vehicle radio units. Each “in-vehicle unit” required a smart card that had to be refilled with cash. Enforcement relies on cameras attached to the back of the gantries. More gantries were fitted in later years. From the beginning, Singapore has focused on varied rates based on different times of day, to different types of vehicles. The Singapore Ministry provided a 2012 parliament excerpt from its minister of transportation stating its tolling system earned 159 million SGD in the fiscal year of 2010 and 97 million SGD as of the end of October 2011, and noted the system is used to “manage congestion … not for revenue generation.”

On Oct. 1 last year, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority announced a tender for what it calls a next generation system based on “Global Navigation Satellite System” technology. The LTA says this is a move to “distance-based pricing” – cost per kilometre, for example – using on-board units that would also deliver real-time traffic information to the driver, and carry payment for parking.

Road pricing still on the table: mayor | Vancouver 24 hrs

So I guess when they can't increase sales tax they will just start using road pricing to get more money out of us. Or maybe we will see sales tax increase and road pricing at the same time.