Dealing With Canada's Transport Infrastructure Deficit

[rkannegi]

We have all heard about how Canada has a major infrastructure deficit, which has been making the news an awful lot lately.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/...l-commute.html

CBC Special Report: The Big Fix
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/features/big-fix/

There's no single way to deal with this, but there's one thing that everyone can agree on: Something needs to be done now - waiting is no longer an option, not if Canada is expected to remain on its feet through these troubled times.

According to the below article, Torontonians spend 80 minutes of commuting round trip per day (40 minutes each way):

http://mediumonline.ca/2011/01/24/gt...olls-for-thee/

80 minutes. By world standards, this is epic in terms of commute length, and it's poised to get a lot worse (it's already worse than New York and LA). Highway 401 between Highways 400 and 404 in Toronto is already the busiest stretch of freeway on the globe at over 500,000 vehicles per day. The fact that a Canadian city as achieved this status is not only embarrassing, but is very telling about much Canada's transport infrastructure management is becoming a failure of epic proportions.

As such, here's a few ideas I came up for Highways and Transit:

Super Express Lanes

I've been thinking for a little while now of suggesting "super express" lanes with very wide exit spacing - on the order of every 50-80km (50km spacing would bypass a lot of the urban commuter traffic in the biggest of cities) with direct access to other PRIMARY freeways. If only there was the room in the 401 RoW... , which there isn't.

While this option would easily provide corridors for long-distance intercity traffic, especially for long-distance truck shipping, which connects most of North America to the backbone of the world economy, trans-oceanic shipping. However, the access from the departure and to the end destination could be a problem in terms of way finding, and could lead to these lanes being underutilized, while the non-express lanes are jammed.

Semi-Toll Express Lanes Or Semi-Toll Expressways

This idea consists of a a set of express lanes where long-distance non-commuter traffic is allowed access without paying a toll (i.e. traffic that travels more than 50km or 100km along the highway, depending on the size of the commuter shed), while daily commuters are charged a toll according to traffic volume (expensive during peak hours and either low rate or no toll during non-peak hours).

I partially got this idea from when the City of London in Ontario considered
charging a toll on an off-ramp from the 401 for garbage trucks to the road that leads to its landfill, while through traffic on the 401 would have been unaffected.

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local.../?hub=CP24Home

Tolling could be done by 407-style sensor/licence plate camera gantries, with tolls priced according to traffic volume. The intent of the tolls would be to fund the additional infrastructure maintenance or expansion, be it road or transit, that is caused by the daily urban commuter demand. In this case, the infrastructure demand for the non-commuter, long-distance traffic could still be funded by fuel taxes. Now, imagine if this was applied to the express lanes of the 401 across the GTA - those simply passing through or those who orginated from/and or are destined to areas outside of the commuter shed would not pay a toll, while those who are proceeding from one point to another that is under the "tolling" distance (be it 50km or 100km trip length from entry to exit) would be charged a toll during peak hours.

In theory, this could be imposed on general freeways too, which would dissuade unnecessary short-distance travel on the freeway, unless if you want to pay for it.

Is this controversial? Certainly. Of course, this is only an option as there are
other ways, some of which have been discussed here before. However, as has been said many times, the way infrastructure is managed in Canada needs to change.

Universal Toll Transponders

With all the toll highways scattered across Canada and the US, there should be a transponder that would be good for use on all toll highways in Canada and the US, and possibly even for paid parking lots and garages too, which would really cut down on the need for toll booths.

Transit

On the other hand, governments need to stop subsidizing ineffective transit
strategies (no more meandering bus routes just to serve a few houses, meanwhile they should be running direct access to major shopping centres, institutions and major employers) while providing incentive for transit to get urban commuters to their destination, at minimum, as fast as if they drove, be it by express bus (BRT), LRT, subway, heavy trail or ferry. Speaking of bus systems, there are many cases where cities would be better off running smaller buses at more frequent intervals (5-15 minutes), than say, running a 40 footer once every 30-60 minutes that only ends up getting a few riders - this would move the bigger buses to busier routes where they are actually needed.

Disabled persons could be accommodated by something like Halifax's Acess-A-Bus (they serve up to 1km from the nearest fixed bus route) or Thunder Bay's HAGI transit service. These services would allow general transit service to keeps its meandering to a minimum - to major commercial centres, malls, and major employment centres and plan the system to serve the rest of the urban area to within a 5 minute walking distance. Where possible, mid-block walkways should be built to allow for improved access to straighter bus routes, while keeping through car traffic out of local side streets. If it's cheaper to expropriate and knock down a house to improve pedestrian transit access, than to meander a bus around, then so be it - Knock the house down!

Transit Authorities May Need New Business Model

I'm not trying to promote WestJet, but I seriously wonder how urban transit
would fare if it was run under a WestJet-style business model (point-to-point
express bus system with bus lanes where warranted with neighbourhood shuttle buses for local residential/business/industrial subdivisions that fan out from each terminal or transfer point, and for heavy-demand runs, LRT and/or subway or heavy rail, and fast ferries for cities with significant water access).

Quote from an October 21, 2003 article "Westjet Profit Takes Flight" on www.airliners.net

"Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had predicted WestJet, one of few airlines to remain profitable following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, would earn 38 cents a share."

full article is here:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo....main/1232281/

More explanation of WestJet's business model (it's a long read, otherwise I suggest looking at the abstract):

Financial Comparisons Across Different Business Models in the Canadian Airline Industry

http://www.trforum.org/forum/downloa...pare_paper.pdf

This sound very controversial, but one needs to wonder if a transit authority adopted similar principles to WestJet, ones that can be applied to mass transit (i.e. you can have the point-to-point system for express buses, but without the need for baggage checks), and if so, this may provide an option to get commuters that can switch to transit onto transit.

Altogether, there are many more ideas out there. So, let the discussion begin.

Regards,

Richard Kannegiesser

[vid]

It's kind of ironic that the article mentions HAGI (one of the oldest accessible bus services in Canada) when we were the first city to introduce a 100% accessible transit fleet. In fact, we have the highest per-capita ridership of persons in wheelchairs in the country, and they represent a considerable chunk of transit's revenue.

That being said, this is also the city that once had an extensive rural bus route system (in 1970s, the bus went down this street about 8 times a day, from Monday to Saturday. Here is a map.) HAGI is not a city-run service, it is privately run and receives a subsidy from the city to operate. There has been talk of completely abandoning it.

A large part of the reason the city wanted to move away from HAGI is cost. Most HAGI buses only have one or two people on them, while most city buses have about 5 to 8 people on them on lightly travelled routes and operate at (and sometimes over) capacity on busy routes. Making the regular transit system, which would run through neighbourhoods anyway, more accessible reduced the need for HAGI transit, meaning that it could cut its costs. It costs several times more per passenger to operate HAGI than it does to operate regular transit.

Thunder Bay is also currently in the process of redesigning the transit system to connect neighbourhoods more directly to multiple nodes. Riders will no longer be required to go a downtown to transfer, as the four transfer points outside of the downtown cores (at our largest mall, our university, our college and our hospital) will get increased service. It may include express service from outer edges of the city to the central areas to reduce travel times even more.

Even with that change, it will not be "as fast as if they drove". People don't stop every 5 minutes to let people on and off, and they often take the most direct route possible.

[jigglysquishy]

Super express highways

Its a simple fix. Start charging those who are taxing the system. The suburban citizen should be paying for the massive road system they're using.

Once the suburbs are properly taxes it'll all take care of itself.

[PoscStudent]

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy

Super express highways

Its a simple fix. Start charging those who are taxing the system. The suburban citizen should be paying for the massive road system they're using.

Once the suburbs are properly taxes it'll all take care of itself.

How do you properly tax them?

Not everyone live in suburbs because they want to.

[sonysnob]

^ No kidding. A modest home in Toronto costs over half a million. People are priced into the suburbs.

[jigglysquishy]

Originally Posted by PoscStudent

How do you properly tax them?

Not everyone live in suburbs because they want to.

People in the suburbs have been subsidized for decades when it comes to infrastructure. Time for them to pay their fair share.

Why do you think cities go broke? Because they build roads and then the people who use them don't pay for them.

[thurmas]

The problem is that cities have no power in canada.In the u.s. if say for example Minneapolis wants to build a new Vikings stadium by rasing hotel and rental car fees they hold a referendum on it to see if the people want such infrastrucutre. In Canada there are no civic referendums for stadiums, bridges, highways ect.. because the provinces control what crumbs the cities get. To fix the problem we would need cities having annual 5 to 10 cent a litre dedicated gas taxes, referendums on specific tax hikes for SPECIFIC infrastruture projects and maybe 1% of the gst or pst or a raise of 1% done by the province or feds just for infrastructure.

[PoscStudent]

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy

People in the suburbs have been subsidized for decades when it comes to infrastructure. Time for them to pay their fair share.

Why do you think cities go broke? Because they build roads and then the people who use them don't pay for them.

I'm not saying you don't make a valid point, all I'm saying is how do you do this?

[vid]

I don't know about Toronto, but in Thunder Bay, the amount of tax money the city receives per acre is higher in the inner city than the edge of the city, but because it is spread through more properties, the taxes are lower for inner city property owners on an individual basis.

I know tax doesn't quite work like this but it is something to think about, I guess. I figured it out a year ago in response to a comment on a local news site.

                        Area                  Tax   Tax/Sqft
2121 Normandy Court   85,100sqft  1.965acre  5500   $0.065/sqft  $2,800/acre
 234 Heron Street      3,100sqft  0.071acre  1450   $0.468/sqft $20,422/acre (7.3 times more)

2121 Normandy Court was recently sold for approximately $629,000, or $322,000 per acre.
 234 Heron Street is on the market for $99,000, or $1,386,000 per acre. (4.3 times more than 2121 Normandy)

The property on Heron Street pays about 7.3 times as much tax per square foot than the property on Normandy Court.

The only reason the property on Normandy Court is paying more is because it covers almost two acres of land; the property on Heron Street covers less than one 14th of an acre.

Not only does the property on Heron street pay more taxes per square foot or land, but it is also taxed higher than the property on Normandy Court. The Heron Street property is paying 1.47% of its per acre value in tax, while the property on Normandy pays 0.87% of its per acre value in tax.

A typical suburban house in Thunder Bay costs about twice as much as a typical inner city house, but obviously our inner city isn't as desirable as Toronto's. The lots are much larger, our suburbs are nowhere near as dense as Toronto's. We're still building 35 to 50 foot lots with ranch houses up here.

[sonysnob]

That's interesting. My understanding of the GTA is that property taxes in Toronto proper are actually pretty low for GTA standards, while the older cities surrounding it, (such as Oshawa) have higher rates. I don't know how this equals out on a per acre (or hectare since we are Canadian) basis.

I was talking with a property owner in Windsor last week who said that a home owner in Tecumseh would pay much less tax than a homeowner owning similar property in Windsor. This seems like an inequality since typically suburban homeowners are provided more services offered by the province, which are of course paid for through general revenue, which of course both suburban and urban land owners are required to pay into.

edit: as an aside, your bus route must be designated as a historic site, which is probably why it hasn't been altered.

[vid]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

edit: as an aside, your bus route must be designated as a historic site, which is probably why it hasn't been altered.

I wish it was, then we'd still have the streetcar! It was the first municipally owned streetcar line in Canada.

Originally Posted by rkannegi

I mentioned HAGI because I used to live in Thunder Bay until 2009 (born and raised), until I had to move to Halifax upon completion of university to go full time with the navy. I remember went I took transit from Castlegreen to Kelsey's on Memorial when I was 15, which was quick, until they implemented the interlined route 3, which turned a 20 minute bus trip into a full hour when they scrapped the run along Balsam, and that was before they had the bus turn off of Red River Road to St. Joe Heritage, which added another few minutes to the length, a diversion that could be serviced by an Access-A-Bus or HAGI or a local neighbourhood shuttle.

The new system brings back County Park>Water St via North End service, but it will still take a while to get to Kelsey's from Castlegreen, which I didn't know existed in the days of County Park via Balsam. I was just 11 when the current scheme was introduced, I barely remember the Balmoral. They appear to have abandoned interlining for the new scheme since all the routes are pretty direct. Service to St. Joe's will be on Rockwood which probably won't be practical because of that hill.



Neebing was excluded because it doesn't meet feasibility guidelines. They're looking into a dial-a-ride type programme, like the one Winnipeg Transit uses for its newly developing suburbs.

[osmo]

Would the gas tax ever become a victim of its own success? I am talking down the road if significant increases we're put in place... necessary improvements to public transit (thus more people using it) we're done across the nation. Plus with volatile fuel prices going forward, the fund would eventually flat-line would it not?

I don't know how far that would have to be, obvious first steps would be to raise it.

[haljackey]

I just wish Canada had more transit and good roads in our cities.

Compare a city like Toronto with others around the world with a similar population. Houston has a ton of freeways, Madrid has tons of subways/rapid transit, Toronto is pretty minimal in both categories.

This means what we do have is heavily strained. If we had more routes to get form A to B that would help. Then again we need funding to build and maintain these new routes too...

Also, most Canadian cities have a ton of wiggle room. Population densities are generally low outside the metro areas so things like a ring road around can easily be built without too many constraints.

We just need the money and willpower to get'er done.

[rkannegi]

I mentioned HAGI because I used to live in Thunder Bay until 2009 (born and raised), until I had to move to Halifax upon completion of university to go full time with the navy. I remember went I took transit from Castlegreen to Kelsey's on Memorial when I was 15, which was quick, until they implemented the interlined route 3, which turned a 20 minute bus trip into a full hour when they scrapped the run along Balsam, and that was before they had the bus turn off of Red River Road to St. Joe Heritage, which added another few minutes to the length, a diversion that could be serviced by an Access-A-Bus or HAGI or a local neighbourhood shuttle.

I've heard bits and pieces about the node system in Thunder Bay. I remember sending in an email back ON 7 April 2008 to councilor Andrew Foulds about suggesting the establishment on an express-collector bus system with nodes scattered across the city. Halifax Metro has a series of terminals distributed around the urban area, but it's bus system takes the average person 4-6 times longer than driving. Not surprisingly, the Harbour Bridges in Halifax are now at 100% capacity during rush hour. Lets hope Thunder Bay's transit overhaul is successful.

Wrt the suburbs, people are indeed being priced further and further away from work. For instance in Halifax, you usually have to move out to Sackville or Eastern Passage if you want to try to get a house under $250,000. Not to mention, commuting is the number one source of stress in CFB Halifax (Canada's east coast navy base), above that of frequent deployments, due to a deficient city bus system, limited parking on base, and an awful road system on the Halifax Peninsula. (For those worried about the security of Canada's east coast - just imagine what it's like when a ship's crew has to be recalled to go to sea for an emergency. I can tell you that a ship's recall in Halifax can get quite messy - now's the time to start worrying). In Montreal, there people are being forced out to Mirabel and St. Hyacynthe - I bet that Brossard is getting unaffordable. For the GTA, some commuters have to live out of the GTA, as far away as Barrie.

The real estate industry needs a real kick in the butt. It's bad when you have houses being built directly in the way of road or transit expansion right-of-way under the guise of "environmentalism", only to see them end up yet another playground for the rich. If it was honestly for sustainable development, developers would not have been allowed to encroach upon highways and potential transitways to the point of making road and transit expansion prohibitively expensive. For instance, in Halifax, Barrington Street could have had interchanges north of Cogswell, with it fanning out into a one-way couplet south of Cogswell (going south) along with dedicated bus lanes had it not been for some of the over development that occurred next to it (i.e. the apartment building recent built at the northwest corner of Barrington Street and Cornwallis Street). (The Cogswell Interchange should still be demolished as it's an operational impediment for some critical traffic movements, i.e. southbound to westbound movements, along with the fact that a one-way couplet is sufficient through downtown Halifax for now)

I'm not against infill, but I certainly don't like it when it gets in the way potential road or transit upgrades that would be critical for the quality of life for an entire city, not to mention when the infill is just another playground for the rich. Even Halifax Regional Municipality moved some of its operations out to Burnside because of transport infrastructure deficiencies downtown, while some business have done this for the same reason, along with being "priced out" to the burbs, yet Halifax Regional Municipality preaches cramming the city full of development beyond what the road system can handle - that what I call being reckless and greedy (it's done for the purposes of maximizing property tax revenue even if it means compromising the safety of the road and transit system). It may sound ironic, but this is a way of how improperly planned/short-sighted infill can exacerbate urban sprawl and even force businesses or government operations out to the suburbs, feeding the real-estate industry's greed even more - yeah, more money poured into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (I know, we don't have them in Canada, but I'd bet they do have stakes in some Canadian real-estate, besides the fact that the CHMC encourages over-priced real estate and probably has gone to bed with corporations like Fannie and Freddie).

The notion of using real-estate as a retirement savings storehouse or as a "piggy bank" in general is reckless and dangerous and it needs to be stopped, before it wrecks the world economy. It's already breaking Canada's transportation system.

The end result of existing policy: more congestion, more budget problems for cities' infrastructure, more air pollution, and further reduction in quality of life overall.

Municipalities need a fundamental re-think of how they run themselves, and the same goes for the provinces and the feds.

[PoscStudent]

In the St. John's area most of the surrounding communities have lower housing pricing and they all have lower property taxes.

There are lots of people who wouldn't be able to afford to live in the city itself.

[rkannegi]

In terms of how I said that road management needs serious change, I even went as far to assemble a massive email that I sent to all provincial, state, territorial and federal DOTs in both Canada and the US on 9 October 2010 (I got a rather positive response from the State of Maryland and 20 days after I sent the original email, I got an unexpected phone call from the MTO - they actually dug up my Halifax phone number, I'd suspect via driver licencing data, considering that I used to live in Thunder Bay). The email forms the "Main Post" of the following facebook page, which it's broken into parts due to facebook's limitations.

North America's Traffic Laws and Road System Need a Major Overhaul

http://www.facebook.com/pages/North-...77902305635702

The U-turn laws of all Canadian provinces and US states are listed (again in parts). This was motivated by issues I encountered during recent travels around North America, be it with work or on my own road trips, arising from inconsistent traffic laws, inconsistent road design standards, inconsistent signs and signals standards, and inconsistent and ineffective police law enforcement policies on the roads, some of which can actually have an effect on traffic flow and infrastructure management, especially when trying to deal with an infrastructure deficit that spans the entire continent. I almost got accused of making an illegal U-turn in Drummond, NB when in fact, it was legal . Thankfully, the RCMP had no intention to give me a ticket anyways. Most people are not this lucky.

Regards,

Richard Kannegiesser

[Coldrsx]

Add on a 2 cent gas tax to non-commercial vehicles that would be split 30/30/40 (feds) for transit and infrastructure.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Add on a 2 cent gas tax to non-commercial vehicles that would be split 30/30/40 (feds) for transit and infrastructure.

That is a good way to derail the entire plan. People these days, except for union leaders, do not want to pay more taxes.

[PoscStudent]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

That is a good way to derail the entire plan. People these days, except for union leaders, do not want to pay more taxes.

It's not as much a tax increase as it would be a tax shift. We can look at something like increasing the gas tax to provide revenue to communities or continue raising property taxes.

[osmo]

Everybody looks the other way in regards to infrastructure spending. How could Canada cope quite easily in the past to fund major capital projects but now struggles deeply?

We used to borrow the cash to our selves at low to near zero interest! This all went out the door when we nose dived into the G7 in the late 70's. Its no coincidence that when we gave up are ability to give our selves loans via the Bank of Canada and opting for the standard international private system did our infrastructural projects start to tank. The 90's budget mess was the final nail in the coffin.

A simple return to are previous methods would infuse our infrastructure purse over night. Every sovereign nation has the right to loan/create its own money at no interest to its self. Its foolish Canada does not get back to doing this. The infrastructural issues will never be solved until this problem is fixed, the deficit is to large for new/conventional ways of tolls or fees to catch up. The best we can do is end the largess of money that gets thrown into roads and balance it out over projects such as Transit and HSR.


Nobody likes to see why and how Arab nations and the Chinese low the west away when it comes to capital spending. They loan them selves cheap money to invest into their infrastructure projects. Parliament should reign in the Bank of Canada and make it do what it was intended to do in the first place.


*** I guess my idea of what may work is if the BoC was back buying up cheap Gov't Bonds then setting up a Federal Purse onw for municipalities over 100K and another for general inter/intra Provincial projects and smaller communities. This Purse would be independent and transparent and free of political ideological meddling. Local/Provincial projects fund the studies and show the genuine needs... finds are given out. Local levels would be in-charge of capital maintenance, this will keep them off the hook from trying to build boondoggles as the Feds would not bail them out if the project becomes an elephant. In theory the bonds would be payed back over the long term, new infrastructure would facilitate economic growth ... the purse grows.