Get region moving again by working together
John Howe Vice President, Investment Strategy for Metrolinx, the regional transportation
authority
November 12 2009
This week's OECD report on the causes and consequences of the Toronto region's
underperforming economy is the latest call to action for the 6 million of us who call
Canada's largest city-region "home" and are dedicated to our long-term prosperity and
success.
Of the more than 35 city regions surveyed around the world, the OECD ranked Toronto
among the bottom eight for productivity growth. We continue to fall short of leveraging
our region's inherent strengths – a top-10 centre for global finance, a diversified
economic base, renowned universities and colleges, and one of the most multicultural
populations on the planet – into an international powerhouse for innovation, investment
and job creation.
The OECD pinpoints traffic congestion, and our region's poorly integrated and
underdeveloped rapid transit systems, as root causes of our poor economic
competitiveness.
Simply put, too many of us waste too much time and money stuck in traffic. In the OECD
report, we earned the dubious distinction of enduring some of the longest home-to-work
commutes in the world.
Last year, Metrolinx quantified the cost of congestion to the Toronto region's economy at
$6 billion per year. This staggering figure includes $3.3 billion in travel delays, additional
fuel and vehicle operating costs, emissions and accidents caused by excess congestion
plus $2.7 billion in unrealized economic productivity and job creation lost to congestion.
If we continue our historical track record of ad hoc and incremental rapid transit
expansion, congestion will grow and create an even heavier drag against our region's
economic competitiveness, to the tune of $15 billion per year within the next 25 years.
We already have a blueprint to recover from the decades of transportation
underinvestment and accommodate the additional 3 million people who will call the
Toronto region "home" over the next 25 years. The $50 billion Metrolinx "Big Move"
plan calls for tripling our rapid transit network to 1,600 kilometres, and bringing rapid
transit to within two kilometres of 80 per cent of the region's population.
This is the scale of investment that will be required to double transit market share,
shorten commute times and reduce the impact of transportation on climate change – the
key success factors to create a more competitive and sustainable urban region for us and
our children.
Last year, the municipalities that make up the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area
unanimously approved the Metrolinx plan. The premier of Ontario followed up with a $9
billion commitment to turn the first five Metrolinx transit project priorities into
construction shovels, beginning in 2009.
The $9 billion is a good down payment. But realistically we cannot expect the province
alone to afford the cost of the ultimate $50 billion plan. On the question of who will pay
for the transportation system of the future, considering the scale of the investment
required, "we are all in it together."
Why? Because a successful regional rapid system is dependent on well-funded and wellintegrated TTC and other municipal transit systems, on roads that host transit services,
and on safe walking and bicycling environments that are instrumental to healthier,
human-scale communities.
The Toronto region is not alone. Every major jurisdiction in the world is faced with a
transportation investment gap. The OECD report recommends that we consider how
revenue sources commonly used elsewhere – including road tolls, congestion charges,
dedicated gas taxes and a stronger federal government funding presence – could be
applied here.
But where is our starting point, given a public that appreciates the importance of the
congestion problem but needs huge convincing to support new taxes or user fees to pay
for the solutions?
"Job One" is winning public confidence by showing this region is capable of working
together to deliver large-scale transit projects – on time and on budget. We need to get
moving with transit building, using the direct government funding sources already
available to us.
The first of the $9 billion project bundle will enter service in 2013. The case for new
funding sources to support the future round of projects will be more compelling after
people see and experience the benefits of new and improved rapid transit.