Promises made by Ontario Premier Doug Ford to buy Highway 407 and remove the tolls to help ease chronic gridlock have so far come up empty,
Oshawa MPP Jennifer French, the NDP Critic for Infrastructure, Transportation & Highways, called out the government’s inaction on Highway 407 as the region faces some of the “worst traffic worldwide.”
“People deserve a government that gets them where they need to go, safely and efficiently,” said French. “While people are stuck in gridlock across the GTA, the 407 sits half-empty – and this premier isn’t doing anything about it.”
Oh my goood. Slow news day? Highway tolls are good, Canada can’t afford to maintain all its roads as is. It might not be a popular opinion but it is an evidence-based one.
Most of Ontario’s roadway infrastructure is in a decline and has been for a while now. Think potholes, crumbling sidewalks, crumbling bridges, lack of roadway reworks for better traffic calming and pedestrian safety to reach “vision zero”.
Its amazing how much car centric infrastructure costs to build and maintain. Its also heavily subsidised, because if you had to pay the “actual cost” to use a roadway it would be unaffordable. Not to mention the indirect costs, such as environmental costs and public heath and wellbeing.
There is a visible difference in how well maintained the tolled 407 is compared to other 400 series highways in terms of proper on/off ramps, concrete roadways, quick response times to debris clearing.
It is a shame the remaining “profits” (after maintainace costs) do not go into other infrastructure projects in Ontario, like schools, hospitals, and parks, but instead a private purse.
Tolls that feed back into the province are great, but the 407 is a privately owned company, and they keep all (most) of the revenue from those tolls. They are also responsible for maintaining those roads.
We got so screwed by selling the 407.
Road maintenance is always at a massive detriment for any country, and you can never recuperate those costs, especially not when you’re encouraging car use over other forms of transportation (like what Ford is doing).
This is why many of us are trying desperately to convince our government (and fellow citizens) to reduce car dependency.
This is exactly what I was thinking. Tolls are good … if that same toll money is fed back into the highway system to build better and more roads for everyone. Toll roads that just make profit for a private corporation without really benefiting the people who actually use the road is a system that doesn’t work.
This isn’t so much about the tolls as it is Drug Fraud breaking yet another election promise.
As for the nation not spending enough on road/bridge infrastructure, if the feds had the balls to do the right thing (ie: tax the rich at pre-1970’s levels) we wouldn’t be in such rough shape.
It makes sense when you realize Ford won’t do anything that returns private money to the public, but will do everything and anything that enriches the private sector.
Removing tolls from the 407 would be a public benefit, so he won’t do it. You’d be more likely to see him sell the east-of-Pickering chunk of 407 for a “tax break” and claim it’s a win.