Raise the Hammer

Inhocmark, in my experience, having one less car is the equivalent of a $10,000 raise. You might have to pay more for the house, but you make that money back over a few years. YMMV.

Actually my thinking is the same. We have one car with no desire to buy a second and I add about 20 minutes onto my commute to make the arrangement work. Heck, I work in TO, I couldn't afford to drive in and you couldn't pay me enough to deal with the aggrivation. Since our move it has worked out quite well driving to a GO station near her work and continuing on to Toronto from there.

For tolls to work, they'd have to be area based rather than specific road way based to avoid clogging up secondary roads with those trying to beat the toll.

Transit would also have to come before tolls. The funds would have to be outlayed in advance to get the network in place to get people where they are going and in an acceptable timeframe. London can charge tolls to enter the city centre because they can point to their expansive public transit network and present a viable and cost/time effective alternative. Sadly I think in today's political climate the initial cost of getting the idea off the ground would be too prohibitive for cowardly politicians.

The final piece of the puzzle would have to be the modification of laws regarding car pooling and providing value for a person's toll beyond the right to drive. Making it officially legal to car pool (it is currently not from my understanding), adding HOV lanes and ultimately implementing measures that ensures a smooth traffic flow in 'normal' conditions.

I'm a huge proponent of thoughtful and effective public transportation. I've lived in some of the biggest cities in Canada and seen the good, bad and ugly. I love the ideas of municipalities, especially in the Southern Ontario corridor charging modest tolls to plug back into the entire transportation system.