Larry's Corner

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Should the Red Hill Valley Parkway be Tolled?

By Larry Di Ianni
(posted January 17, 2008)  

Back in 2003 when I ran for Mayor, I had just ended my role as Chair of the Expressway Implementation Committee, a group of Councillors charged with the construction of the road. One of the things which we considered, and dismissed as impractical, was the tolling of the Red Hill Expressway and/or the Linc. For a brief period of time a candidate for Mayor in that election was Fred Eisenberger. He dropped out of the race, but not before he advocated for the tolling of the Expressway.

Fast-forward to today. The Parkway is built. Fred Eisenberger is the Mayor and the issue of tolling is squarely back on Council’s radar. Who is supporting this initiative? Well, the Mayor for one, who is reputed to have stated at a January 7 meeting: “I certainly at one point advocated for tolling. I thought that makes all kinds of sense.” Perhaps surprisingly, two staunch Parkway opponents have also come out swinging in support of tolls: Richard Reble, and the better known antagonist, City Hall critic, transit aficionado and road hater, Don McLean. Mr. McLean especially has been instrumental, along with trusted lieutenants, in personally planning the opposition to the road for decades. His opposition has been always dogged, sometimes ruthless, occasionally creative, certainly impassioned, and indeed total and unrelenting. His single man march was only stopped by the inevitable will of Council, and the overwhelming support of the people of Hamilton. I thought he was over the loss, but it seems that there is still life left in the ancient mariner.

As Councillors have pointed out and as I have certainly felt since the road opened up, the project has been a major success. Its users are happy; the congested neighbourhoods along Centennial Parkway are livable again, and the truck fumes spewing on churches and schools are now chugging along an appropriate road. By all accounts this has been a successful transportation enterprise whose financial benefits also have been felt and will continue to be enjoyed in the years ahead. So, if you have spent your time opposing a popular project, how do you salvage victory from a resounding defeat? Well, you try to make it unpopular, that’s how. How do you do that? The same way you tried to stop the project in the first place. You delay it delay it delay it, hoping that the costs of delay would make the project unaffordable. This not having worked, you now attempt to pile on expenses on the taxpayers who have paid for the project already by forcing them to pay again through tolls. Not only will Hamiltonians not be pleased if this were to happen, they would punish politically anyone who supports this triple tax: the same taxpayer has paid for the road through contributions to provincial taxes, municipal taxes and tolls, if accepted.

Tolling, however, is a bad idea, not only because of the politics, but also because of the practicalities.

In 2004, I believe, Council commissioned a study on the impact of tolling the road. It found some interesting things: Hamiltonians in public opinion polls were overwhelmingly against tolls, Hamiltonians would avoid the road by a good percentage if tolls were to be paid, the one time administrative costs of tolling would be $1.5M and the yearly admin costs would be $.5M in 2004 dollars, surely more today. The capital costs amortized over 15 years would be almost $48M dollars if both the RHVP and the Linc were tolled. These costs would of course be balanced by annual revenues of between $3 and $14M, depending on the extent of the tolling. The revenues are contingent on the same level of users on the road as would travel it if no tolls existed. If however, only 15% were to avoid it as the study suggests, the revenue stream would diminish. More damaging would be the impact on those neighbourhoods that once again would have to put up with congestion and pollution by the returning traffic.

I recall being visited by a group of consultants who had just completed the 407, trying to convince me to go the toll route. I stayed away from them like the plague. The 407 makes money for the private operators, but it is the most expensive toll road in the world, I read somewhere. And it is very unpopular with the residents of Ontario. The last thing I wanted to do was create our own unpopular road here. No one would be happy with that, unless you were a road opponent, of course.

Because the road had its share of controversies, and because there are members of Council who also opposed the project, the road will continue to be somewhat of a political football. In fact, there is one Councillor in particular who makes the outlandish claim that the actual yearly cost of the road is about $20M. He makes this outlandish claim even though staff has told him publicly that he is figuring out the cost of this project in a way that no other project is analyzed. It doesn’t matter to him. In spite of the lack of diligence in making his statements, his colleagues on Council and the public don’t buy the calculations. They are seen as harmless hot air. But it one were to take this Councillors antipathy to the project, add it to at least two other Councillors who also don’t support the road. Include the Mayor in the mix of those mesmerized by the illusory dollars tolls would bring and you have a base of four potential tolling enthusiasts. Throw into the dynamic supposed community ‘voices’ and the scenario becomes somewhat worrisome. What should save us from tolls, however, is that the numbers don’t add up to great revenues for the city while the costs are real. And the will of the majority of Hamiltonians would once again be heard at election time if tolls were introduced. What is the sound of those bells tolling? It is the sound of election ballots voting against a regressive tolling strategy.

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