Metrolinx has released a short list of investment tools to expand transit in the GTA. The "strategies and investment tools to fund transit" are methods of generating revenue. Taxes and added fees that will be used specifically for funding the expansion of transit. It's fantastic that this list is out and that people are talking about how to fund transit; it's got to have money to expand and that money has got to come from somewhere. Unfortunately, it looks like Metrolinx hasn't thought very hard about the effects of many of these investment tools.
Some of the investment tools, namely increasing transit fares, will have a negative effect. It will discourage ridership, especially when Toronto is already famous for having one of the highest fares. It will punish those people that rely solely on transit to get around the city. We should be rewarding riders and trying to reduce the fare to make transit a much more attractive system.
Many of the options on the list are related to vehicle use. Highway tolls, fuel tax, vehicle kilometres travelled fee. This makes a lot of sense: increase the cost of driving yourself around and people are less likely to do it. This, of course, means that these taxes aren't so much for revenue generation as they are for discouraging vehicle use. That's fantastic, for its own reason and that reason isn't to generate revenue for transit. Sure, some money will be generated but if, and when, people switch away from driving themselves the level of revenue generated will decrease. This should be expected but if it's the way transit is getting funded those fees will have to be increased over and over. It's a hassle and hard to do, politically. These fees should be put in place but as added incentive to use transit and as an added variable source of funding, not as the primary revenue generation.
One other proposal related to private vehicle use: high occupancy vehicle toll. The same as any other tax, this will encourage a reduction in the taxed behaviour. If we charge people to carpool, people will have less incentive to carpool. It would be great if people chose not to drive but, when they choose to drive, it would be better if they chose to carpool.
The best option for funding transit is to put in place an actual revenue generating tax: the sales tax. The sales tax would have to apply to a sufficiently large enough area that people could not just easily leave the area to shop but not so large as to affect a great number of people that will not be getting the benefit. The GTA is probably a large enough area, the increase in sales tax does not need to be huge so the incentive to shop elsewhere will be small. People on the edges of the GTA may take advantage but if saving a small amount of money comes at the cost of a couple hours more driving, most people are not likely to shift their shopping habits. People aren't going to stop spending their money so it's guaranteed to raise revenues.
Couple the sales tax with some, or all, of the vehicle use fees to encourage more ridership on transit. This way transit has a stable source of funding, an added variable source of funding, and increased ridership to show that it's effective. With the right mix funding transit can be mostly painless. With the wrong mix the fees will only add to the transit headache the GTA is already suffering.
