The impact of this tax grab is hidden in the supposedly low cost of $0.06 per kilometre or between $0.42 and $21.81 per toll, depending on the highway stretch.
The estimated cost on twinning the highways is $ 2.8 Billion which equates to an average cost of $7,236,842.11 per kilometre. I could not find a cost this high anywhere in Canada. We already pay some of the highest taxes in the country. We have Federal and Provincial gas tax, registration fees, licensing fees not to mention Provincial, Federal income tax, Property Tax, Tolls already in place and any applicable sin taxes plus whatever taxes I may not know about and of course HST in addition to these.
We all know how talented politicians are when it comes to squandering our hard earned tax dollars. Adding a toll, to our after tax dollars, is just another way of taking more Tax dollars out of the pockets of already heavily burdened taxpayers.
User pay seems to be the general belief in Road tolls tax based on usage. There is no transit system on these routes so we don’t have a choice. If you use the road more than other people you already pay more in fuel tax. The user already has maintenance costs, snow tires, more frequent vehicle purchases, insurance premiums etc., all resulting in more HST collected.
Some people have raised the point that more wealthy people drive and therefore justify the toll. Although wealthy people drive so do lots of lower income working people. This is in essence a tax on an essential service necessary for well-being, which everyone should be able to access. A tax or fee on an essential service that is not based on ability to pay is regressive. I consider roads an essential service as I depend on them to travel from the Valley to the city for gainful employment for which taxes are collected.
I believe the twinned highways will reduce the number of collisions but could be offset by the increase in accidents on the secondary routes as congestion increases when people try to avoid the tolls.
Then there is the additional administration to be put in place, including additional people and technology required to monitor and collect the toll tax…Road tolls won’t give us the net revenue we need any time soon, nor will they address our most pressing operating budget issues. They will only bury us further in taxes. If efficiency is of no concern we could always use the transfer payments. This would only use 1.5 payments. —Richard
This article appears in Mar 2-8, 2017.
I have heard that the heaviest 20% of the vehicles cause 80% of the road damage. I don’t know 8f this is true, but I have a firm belief that my wife’s car hasn’t caused one iota of damage to the roads she travels. If people like her pay the same toll as a beer truck then they subsidizing your drinking habit.
You are greatly misinformed and wildly exaggerating. You may want to research your facts instead of pulling them from your ass…
Wonder how much it’s going to cost to set up the toll booths and employ the angry toll collectors? O, and can’t forget security, cause they’re going to be chasing toll jumpers like me, cause I’ll be goddamned if I going to pay it, pay enough already.
Yes, wise choice bullet. This is exactly how you should protest. Rather than paying the 1-2 dollar toll, push on. Get a 1-2 hundred dollar fine and maybe some other legal penalty. That’s using your head! Do you by any chance travel via dutch village road / joe howe on a daily basis? Just a guess.
Interesting perspective and although verification of your points is impossible due to the absence of citations, you did missed one important point although you did to elude to it: choice.
You made the choice to live in the Valley and work in HRM.
Driverless cars/trucks will get more traffic, more safely along existing roads. Put yer billions there.
And beer pipelines. That will keep a lot of traffic off the highways, and folks will be praying for a spill…
@ Holst….per direction, I can’t afford that shit, and no, I avoid Halifax at all costs, so you’re not blessed by my presence, sorry. They have to catch me first. I know a guy who never pays bridge tolls, he goes through at rush hour, they don’t stop people, fucker just sits there and waits, works every time. Conversely, there are secondary roads running adjacent to every hunnert series in this province, traffic on those will rise exponentially. You’re one of those lambs that will hand over 50% of your income, shrug your shoulders and say ” what are ya gonna do”? It’s coming…new taxes for everyone, get SFA out of it.
I’ve pulled into the toll booth. Had problems with my mac pass. And Noone comes to assist. After several minutes I end up having to crash through the gate.
I also feel like I’ve done my due diligence if I have a mac pass that has funds in it. If their system fails to read it, that is not my responsibility.
Taxes! Taxes! Taxes! In my experience it’s usually the folks who make the most money who complain the most about taxes. If you make 60K/yr. or more (like most of my acquaintances) you are in the top 20% of wage earners. You should consider yourself to have won the lottery already and stop your bellyaching.
Besides, taxes have already been cut to the bone over the past few decades. That’s why our infrastructure is crumbling.
“You hear today that tax cuts are going to be paid for by cutting gravy trains, by reducing waste, by cleaning up government. Its what the philosopher Joseph Heath calls magical thinking. We so desperately want this bargain; we want it to be free, Himelfarb says. We want Swedish-style services and American-style taxes so badly that were ready to believe that we can have these tax cuts for free.
Theres never enough gravy to pay for the tax cuts, Himelfarb says, and therefore cuts always have some impact on services.
And the consequences of the extraordinary level of tax cuts weve had over the last 15 to 20 years is austerity forever, he says. Cutting programs, forgoing investments, deferring the kind of maintenance we need on infrastructure. One of the reasons why we have unbelievable traffic gridlock in all the cities is because that big investment we should have been making has been cut. “
https://www.desmog.ca/2015/04/21/complaini…