Personal ATM

[niteowl]

That's how the BC Liberals see us with the newest toll to pay on the new Port Mann in about 2 years.

Let's see what their legacy is:

Tolls on Port Mann, Tolls on Golden Ears, raised basic car insurance, charging for eye exams,charging for ambulance transportation, raised provincial tax, fees to enter Provincial Parks,HST, electronic tax,escalating carbon tax, sell off the fast ferries for less than the price of scrap metal, privatizing BC Rail, privatizing BC Ferries, hand pick a new Translink Board of Directors to fast track the RAV Line.

What else is there where they are making us pay through the nose?

 

[Karl Blues]

I don't have a problem with tolls. It's a user-pay system. Otherwise these new roads and bridges would be paid from taxes. If you drive you pay. On the other had, gotta wonder where all the money from gas-taxes goes to.
And the HST is a terrible cost for the consumer in the short term. It's a $2 billion tax shift from business to individuals.

Political suicide, I think, for the BC Liberals. Fast way to get the NDP back in power.

 

[Horse99]

Tolls existed back in roman times, if not before...All the new super highways in Europe are tolled... If you use it, pay for it.....nothing's for free in this world, except other people's complaints.

 

[HankQuinlan]

If you are going to reduce the tax load on the rich and on the corporations, someone has to pay, eh?

 

[mimi]

Yeah, tolls from ancient times...

wasn't that about a troll sitting under a bridge with a big club?

....think Monte Python...

the Liberal government

 

[twoblues]

If you are going to reduce the tax load on the rich and on the corporations, someone has to pay, eh?

Taxing the minority (the rich/corps) to suppor the poor? Yah, that's a system that will work.

We want more and more services, but we don't want to pay more for it (as is evidenced by the anti-HST campaign).

Income tax has been lowered across the board. I much prefer a usage tax over an income tax. Gives me more control over what I want to pay for.

 

[oh3421]

Taxing the minority (the rich/corps) to suppor the poor? Yah, that's a system that will work.

We want more and more services, but we don't want to pay more for it (as is evidenced by the anti-HST campaign).

Income tax has been lowered across the board. I much prefer a usage tax over an income tax. Gives me more control over what I want to pay for.

Paying tolls on the Port Man bridge is not really a "choice" if you live in Surrey and this is your only link. From a taxpayer perspective, it is even more galling to see the "free" bridge ripped down to be replaced with a toll bridge. If user pay is such a terrific idea, why limit it to just 1-2 bridges, why not do it EVERYWHERE? I could live with a general user pay system for driving like London UK as long as EVERYBODY is affected and not just one small slice of residents.
BTW, in suburbia, the Liberals are so dead in the water right now, it is not even funny. Why do they even bother with the signature campaign? They could easily recall an entire boatload of liberal MLAs without breaking a sweat.

 

[snif]

A toll booth and a customs at the end of the bridge would be better.
anything east of the Port Mann should have to show a passport.

 

[HeMadeMeDoIt]

This province has the largest whiner per capita in the world! We spend half of our lives either stuck in traffic or complaining about it yet when there is a solution that costs close to nothing many jump on the "bash it" bandwagon with very little thought.

Living on the other side of the bridge is a choice that many of us make for more affordable housing. Compare the price in Surrey to one in Coquitlam and you'll see what I mean. I'd much sooner spend a few bucks each day on a bridge toll than wasting my gas, vehicle depreciation, time and aggravation on sitting in traffic. If the new Portmann shaves off 10 minutes of my commute each way Im further ahead!

Have any of you guys seen how many toll bridges there are in San Francisco?

 

[twoblues]

Living on the other side of the bridge is a choice that many of us make for more affordable housing. Compare the price in Surrey to one in Coquitlam and you'll see what I mean. I'd much sooner spend a few bucks each day on a bridge toll than wasting my gas, vehicle depreciation, time and aggravation on sitting in traffic. If the new Portmann shaves off 10 minutes of my commute each way Im further ahead!

Part of the reason I'm paying more to live in North Van is that my commute (by car) is now 15 minutes. Less than 30 minutes by bicycle or bus. So, I pay more, but I am no longer commuting from Coquitlam and my quality of life is better even if I have less money

They are going to toll every bridge eventually. It will be the only way to pay for them. The Port Mann is not the only choice, but everyone who doesn't want to pay will be going to the Patullo or even the Alex Fraser...so the commute will be much nicer for the Port Mann toll payers, I'm going to assume.

 

[storm rider]

Well what the hell do you expect...BC stands for....Bring Cash ...everybody wants to carve out the proverbial pound of flesh out of you.I know as I lived there for a good number of years...from the north shore to the fraser valley to the interior....same story all over the place.Suck it up and pay up...or move to Alberta where you can buy a house in a major city for under 400 grand and not pay tolls on bridges....or be tasered/pepper sprayed for not paying for a skytrain ticket.

SR

 

[HubbaHubba]

Well what the hell do you expect...BC stands for....Bring Cash ...everybody wants to carve out the proverbial pound of flesh out of you.I know as I lived there for a good number of years...from the north shore to the fraser valley to the interior....same story all over the place.Suck it up and pay up...or move to Alberta where you can buy a house in a major city for under 400 grand and not pay tolls on bridges....or be tasered/pepper sprayed for not paying for a skytrain ticket.

SR

We send all the whiners to Calgary

 

[HankQuinlan]

Well what the hell do you expect...BC stands for....Bring Cash ...everybody wants to carve out the proverbial pound of flesh out of you.I know as I lived there for a good number of years...from the north shore to the fraser valley to the interior....same story all over the place.Suck it up and pay up...or move to Alberta where you can buy a house in a major city for under 400 grand and not pay tolls on bridges....or be tasered/pepper sprayed for not paying for a skytrain ticket.

Yes,,,but...that wouldn't that mean living in Alberta? ~shudder~ (did that for 8 years) I guess sucking up and paying up will have to do.

 

[bcneil]

A benefit of being single, is I am able to move to where I work.
I have never lived more than 10 minutes from where I work, it rocks.
I have coworkers coming in from Abbotsford, 90 minutes each way.
$10 a day to park. Gas, and 50,000+km on their cars each year.

As far as governments we need a third option.

 

[bcneil]

1 - Democratic Government
2 - Totalitarian Government
3 - ??? No Government ???

As far as parties

 

[niteowl]

If tolls is the only way to pay for bridges, they why do we have gas tax? Where does the $0.14/L we pay, go? MLAs pay raise?

The Provincial gov't gets about $8b in gas tax. Where is it? How much of that could be use to pay off the RAV Line? Golden Ears Bridge, Port Mann and get the new line started near Coquitlam?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_Canada

 

[vancity_cowboy]

in the post second world war era government had income tax, property tax and manufacturers sales tax for revenue. with those three taxes they built this country - the roads, the bridges, the airports, the dams, the power lines, the schools, the hospitals, the sidewalks, you name it.
now they've got income tax, property tax, regional district tax, gst, provincial sales tax (or HST), the fuckin' lotteries fer chrissakes, user fees, airport fees, and they can't even afford to operate the stuff that was built in our grandparents time! and they want to put tolls on new bridges?
somebody at the top is skimming off a whole lot of friggin' cream i tell you - and i'm not talking chump change here

 

[johnperb]

Tolls were the start of the corporate world. Groups of private individuals approached government with a proposal to build a public good (e.g. canal, road, bridge, etc.). If their petition was successful, they were allowed to form a corporation to build that good & collect tolls on its users to pay for their investment in the public work and a tidy profit. At some point in time, the corporation would expire and the operation of the public work would revert to the government.

User pay is generally the fairest way to finance a public work. Don't want to pay? Don't use it. Can't avoid that toll bridge with your car? Use public transit or pay the premium for your choice not to use public transit. Making private cars more costly to use is one of the ways that Gov't is persuading folks to move to driving less & using mass transit more.

Ever taken the skytrain during peak times? Its already past capacity, waiting for 5 trains at Broadway and still having to stand the whole way to Surrey Central. Or getting to Surrey Central only to have to go back to King George so you can get a seat and not be squished and elbows for the entire ride.

 

[summerbreeze]

If you look at the $ spent on highway improvement in terms of increase per year over the past 30 years it is relatively mild increase

Then you look at the number of highway miles driven i.e. increase of commuters, distance driven, increased number of cars you will find that $ spent has not kept up to traffic load

Gas tax is supposed to take care of highway maintenance but when they taxed in the 80's and 90's they did not take into account more fuel efficient cars, so proportionally we have higher miles driven vs $ collected

Pay toll is a way to get private industry and banking to step up and finance the construction of a bridge or highway without further burdening the tax payers and government with debt and interest, its a government balance sheet issue and source of funds issue

In terms of wait times in rush hour traffic, this is causing double the pollution from emissions as well as slowing down industry

Pay per use fair, if the surrey people who have to use the bridge complain about fairness, what about us vancouverites who pay heavy taxes to fund the sky train which most us never use, its main benefit is to the suburbs who come into our fair city to earn a living and go off to the burbs and pay less taxes out there, we have to fund their benefit, don't here us vancouverites whining about that one

 

[storm rider]

I remember reading about that nasty Carbon Tax on gasoline....my first thought was that I would install a tidy tank in the back of my truck and go across the line and fill up in the USA once every 2-3 months.Thusly avoiding the nasty fuel tax as well as getting gas cheaper in the US market.