A TTC bus pulls out from a stop behind Toronto Mayor Rob Ford while he waits for a news conference to begin affirming the Mayor's committment to subways over surface modes of transit, in Scarborough, Feb. 1, 2012.
On his very first day in office, Mayor Rob Ford declared that "the war on the car is over." Can you imagine him bringing in a new gasoline tax to pay for transit? How about a parking levy? Expressway road tolls?
Hard to get your mind around, isn't it? Yet a report presented to city council's executive committee on Monday makes it clear that the mayor will have to consider these measures and more if he is to have a chance of building his favourite transit project: a Sheppard subway.
The report by KPMG consultants was commissioned by Gordon Chong for his study promoting the project. It looks into the cost of extending the current, five-station Sheppard line eastward to the Scarborough city centre. The estimated cost for that leg is more than $2.7-billion.
As KPMG points out, the city should be able to count on $650-million from the provincial government. That, at least, was the amount that Premier Dalton McGuinty agreed to set aside when he signed a transit agreement with Mr. Ford last March. An additional $333-million has been earmarked by the federal government. If things work out, that should give Mr. Ford a down payment of $983-million for Sheppard.
KPMG reckons the city could get another $900-million from the intensified development along the Sheppard route that would result from the construction of a subway line. This would come from levying development charges, selling city-owned development rights and using tax-increment financing, a way of building community projects by raising money on the assumption of higher tax revenues in the future.
Critics doubt that Sheppard would draw nearly enough new development to produce such a funding bonanza, but let's give project boosters the benefit of the doubt and assume that the city reaps the whole $900-million plus the $983-million from governments. This still leaves the project about $900-million short under the traditional funding models (and about $700-million short under newer models, according to KPMG).
That means turning to what the consultants call "other revenue tools." By another of those ironies that seem to blossom in Mr. Ford's footprints, nearly all of them involve sticking it to his friend the beleaguered driver.
Congestion charges like they have in Stockholm or London could bring in up to $136-million a year. Expressway tolls could bring in up to $556-million.
Toronto could follow the example of San Diego and Minneapolis and charge solo drivers for using high-occupancy vehicle, or HOV, lanes. Or it could tax parking. San Francisco levies a 25 per cent tax on all commercial off-street parking and puts 40 per cent of the take into a transportation fund. A gasoline tax on British Columbia's south coast goes to funding transit as well.
The consultants even suggest a vehicle registration tax – just like the one Mr. Ford killed weeks after taking office. "While vehicle charges have recently been removed in the city," KPMG says dryly, "this revenue tool remains a possible option for consideration."
Mr. Ford has always refused even to think about taxing drivers. So the Chong report presents him with a dilemma. He is eager to deliver on his promise of a Sheppard subway, but, to get it, he might have to open his mind to measures that run against his grain. Welcome to the real world, Your Worship.
Marcus Gee