Raise the Hammer

With Metrolinx releasing its long-awaited investment strategy today, an exclusive Spacing poll shows that scarcely more than a quarter of GTHA residents are prepared to back a regional sales tax hike to raise funds to pay for a generation’s worth of transit and congestion-busting investments across the region.

Furthermore, only 17% of all respondents agreed that individual taxpayers should foot the bill for Metrolinx’s next wave of Big Move projects. Indeed, almost four in ten felt that transit users should pick up the tab. Interestingly, 44% felt the cost should be borne by businesses and developers, while 60% of the respondents said that the private sector should be more involved in financing these projects.

As for the revenue tools themselves, the poll — conducted earlier this month by Innovative Research Group* — revealed that residents were most likely to favour four sorts of taxes — development charges, parking space levies, HOT lanes, and highway tolls — over all the other mechanisms floated by the regional agency earlier this spring. Those four, some of which have turned up as top choices in other recent polls, are the only ones on Metrolinx’s short-list to merit “net positive support,” meaning the total number of respondents in favour exceeds those opposed.

Problem is, Metrolinx officials have said in recent weeks that highway tolls won’t be considered until a lot more transit is up and running. Moreover, two of the tools that passed muster with the public in the Spacing/Innovative poll — development charges and HOT lanes — aren’t big money-makers.

The AECOM study of the revenue tools released in March estimated the net revenue from HOT lanes is probably no more than $100 million annually. Development charges can bring in a further $50 million. As for the parking space levy, it could raise over $400 million per year, but AECOM cautions that it would be like a property tax and would therefore have to be adopted by individual municipalities, which adds an element of uncertainty and plenty of delay.

In sum, while 55% of GTHA drivers reports that their commute is getting worse and three in four residents feel more transit is the way to change the channel on congestion, the lukewarm support for acceptable but low-impact revenue tools underscores the magnitude of the challenge Premier Kathleen Wynne’s minority government faces as it gears up to find ways to raise about $2 billion a year.

What makes her agenda even more daunting is that the public’s awareness of Metrolinx’s grand plan, though certainly greater than it was a year or two ago, remains modest, especially outside the 416 (45% of all residents have heard of The Big Move, with that figure rising to 57% inside the 416).

http://spacing.ca/toronto/2013/05/27/spacing-and-innovative-research-transit-poll-skeptcism-on-revenue-tools/