If you google this topic, and have a lot of patience, you’ll find a lot of information.
The Toronto Region Board of Trade thinks gridlock costs some six billion dollars a year. But they are not interested in contributing to the solution. They think a gas (car) and property (home) tax is the answer.
Here is a page from the Globe and Mail on this topic. If you read this carefully you’ll be able to make these conclusions:
It is, apparently, difficult to count parking spaces in the GTA. 4 million or 3 million.
It is, apparently, difficult to raise $350 million from parking taxes.
Bullfeathers. Assume there are 2 million parking spaces that are parked on in every business day, some 200 days per year. Assume a surtax of $1.00 on every parking instance downtown, directed entirely to transit. Assume you can multiply one dollar by two millon spaces by 200 days: you get: Four Hundred Million Dollars.
I submit that, if one drives downtown, one’s costs for the trip are over ten dollars, probably twenty if you’re sitting in gridlock and paying for parking. Maybe more.
I submit that, if you want to reduce gridlock, you charge those who are both causing it and will benefit from its reduction.
So, the Real Estate industry is opposing this. Here is a link to the same page, in case you missed it above.
Now for the dumb questions:
- Are we the only ones who can multiply two by two hundred?
- Is this an underestimate?
- Is this affordable? If you have a drive-to job, can you afford $200 spread over a year?
- Is the resistance of the Real Estate Industry logical? Are they acting on behalf of their tenants?
- If we put up with this, are we dumb?
As always, coherent comments will be positively moderated. Respond here.