Comment 93982

By jonathan (registered) | Posted October 30, 2013 at 12:27:55 in reply to Comment 93961

Perhaps I'm not understanding what you're saying, but wasn't that the point of the report? Hamilton's road maintenance does, indeed, come out of our city taxes--but it shouldn't have to. Drivers pay more than enough to cover the maintenance costs, but those funds are not kept separate at the federal/provincial levels, and are not sufficiently returned to the city, and as a result, are spent on things other than roads. Are there external costs not included? Of course. Similarly, there are external revenues not calculated (such as municipal taxes and HST, also paid by the drivers).

The question has always been, do they pay enough? The answer, it would appear, is yes, they do--in Hamilton. Since this discussion is related to Hamilton roads, I'm naturally focused on that--though I did mention that, overall across Ontario, this is not the case.

As for the overall, across the province deficit, that doesn't really surprise me. Take the drive to Ottawa up the 416, and try to understand why on earth there's an eternally empty 4-lane expressway going all the way there.

I really don't know why you have a problem with this report, when at the very least, it could lend itself for getting more gas-tax kickback.

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