这篇报道值得一读，为解决加拿大公车系统的困境提出了新的思路：大意是，开车的掏钱补贴坐车的，劫富济贫，基本合理。
Canada’s public transit systems need an extra $1.7 billion a year over the next two decades if the county’s urban centres are to avoid crippling gridlock, according to federally commissioned reports released this month.
And that new transit money should be raised through user fees on motorists that could include electronic tolls on many of the nation’s roads and highways.
“The idea is that the money would be raised through fuel tax and/or some kind of road pricing,” says Toronto transportation consultant Neal Irwin, who authored one of three Transport Canada-sponsored reports urging new visions and funding arrangements for the country’s transit systems.
“You could have the kind of transponders used on Highway 407 as part of the licence plate, and people would pay for the use of the road,” he said.
Irwin, managing director of the IBI Group, said motorists could be charged for road usage in the same way that telephone and electricity customers currently are, with those who drive during peak periods paying more for the privilege.
“If they’re using a road at 5 o’clock in the afternoon going northbound in Toronto, they would pay a higher tariff than if they were using the same road at 3 a.m., which is just what we do right now for power and telephone,” he said.
“This is the way we normally allocate goods and services in our society so there’s nothing new here, it’s just new when it comes to roads.”
Irwin said parking surcharges and vehicle registration fees could also be earmarked for additional transit funding.
That money would then flow directly into a federally run or regulated pool designated for the upkeep and expansion of bus, subway and commuter rail services across Canada.
The reports, which could significantly influence Ottawa’s emerging national transit strategy, aim to create commuter systems that are more competitive with the automobile, Irwin said.
Laying the bulk of the burden for better transit on the backs of car drivers makes sense on several fronts, he said.
“First of all, in the view of most serious analysts in the transportation field, the users of cars and trucks are not paying the full cost of what that mode of transportation inflicts on society,” he said.
For example, the health costs associated with automobile emissions and accidents far surpass the money currently collected through gasoline taxes and licence fees, he said.
As well, Irwin said, charging motorists for transit improvements would have the dual effect of creating a more attractive alternative to automobiles while discouraging their frequent use.
“In both ways you help reduce congestion significantly.”
But Canadian Automobile Association spokesperson David Leonhardt says motorists in this country already pay far more in fuel taxes and licensing fees than they receive in government road spending.
Leonhardt said car-related taxes and fees bring $4 billion a year to provincial coffers, while Queen’s Park spends only $1.5 billion on roads and other transportation projects. The federal government, he says, currently brings in about $3 billion in annual fuel taxes while spending almost nothing on Ontario highways.
Federal transport spokesperson Anthony Polci stressed that the trio of reports should not be considered federal policy. But they will form an important contribution to the government’s current work on a new transit initiative promised in the last throne speech, he said.
Irwin’s report looks at a new vision for transit across Canada and includes recommendations aimed at increasing ridership in major centres like Toronto as much as 80 per cent by the year 2020.
Such improvements would require an additional $1.4 billion a year in capital upkeep and expansion money and another $300 million a year in operational funding, according to a second report on the current condition of Canada’s transit systems.
A third report makes a cost-benefit analysis of funding for transit and urges an expanded federal role in paying for its upkeep and expansion.
