Saturday, May 02, 2009

The Blue Bridge

I would like to see the city make the bridge a P3, design, build and operate. I would also like to see the city toll the bridge.

You automatically toll through transponders on cars or you people have to pay in person. You offer transponders to people living in the city of Victoria and rent them out to people living outside of the city. I would charge $1 per crossing if you are using the transponder and $2 if you are paying in cash. I would make it a large fine if you do not pay the toll. I would rent the transponders out at about $20 per month.

The tolls would move the burden of the costs of the bridge onto the people that use it and off of the people that do not. I like the idea of user pay for services from government, to much of how we operate governments does not fairly distribute the costs.

Tolls would also encourage more walking, biking and transit use.

4 comments:

David Bratzer said...

A couple of thoughts:

-I think most people would just take the Bay St bridge if there was a toll on the new bridge.

-A toll may be appropriate for mega projects like the PEI bridge, but I'm not sure it is warranted for our tiny bridge between Esquimalt & Victoria.

-We should be encouraging more people to come downtown, not financially penalizing them for coming into the core.

-Shouldn't the pedestrians and cyclists have to pay a toll as well, if there is going to be one?

-What if other municipalities start charging tolls for transportation infrastructure? What if Saanich builds a McKenzie overpass and includes a toll? What about the Bear Mountain interchange? How much tolling will the general public tolerate?

Just my thoughts.. they are only worth about 2 cents. :-)

Dave

postie said...

Im assuming that the bikers and walkers would have to pay a toll too , after all they are using the bridge too.

Bernard said...

I would only apply the toll to private vehicles - the city soaks business badly enough and walking and cycling should be encouraged

Anonymous said...

I can't see anyone getting in front of this parade. It would be political suicide.