FW: Some follow-up thoughts from CCC's presentation to transportation committee today re. roads funding

[John Verbaas]

I made a presentation at this week's transportation committee budget deliberations and one of my points was suggesting that the committee start to consider what possibilities could exist for finding other ways to finance road operations and capital expansion costs other than from the property tax base.  I used some of the work going on now in the City of Toronto as an example to try and provide some motivation.

 

My presentation was met with skepticism from Councillor Clark so I engaged him in a few emails and sent him a copy  of the document produced in Toronto. (see attachment to this email).

 

I thought I'd forward this on to you as an FYI.

 

John

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From: Clark, Peter D [mailto:peter...@ottawa.ca]
Sent: November-09-12 12:58 PM
To: 'John Verbaas'
Cc: Wilkinson, Marianne
Subject: RE: Some follow-up thoughts from CCC's presentation to transportation committee today re. roads funding

John

 

I will read it.

 

TMP should probably be the right forum.....The counter argument to your position could be that motorists pay a heavy toll in gas taxes, which go into senior government general revenues and do no match government spending on roads and ancillary works.

 

P

 

From: John Verbaas [mailto:jver...@rogers.com]
Sent: November 09, 2012 12:29 PM
To: Clark, Peter D; Wilkinson, Marianne
Subject: RE: Some follow-up thoughts from CCC's presentation to transportation committee today re. roads funding

 

Hi Marianne and Peter, as a further follow-up on the topic of conversation of funding for transportation....I'm enclosing the draft report produced by the City of Toronto (from the Deputy City Mgr/Treasurer) on this subject.  At 15 pages it's not too onerous a read.  It is oriented more towards raising funds for transit expansion but I believe the relevance can also extend to roads operating/capital as well.

 

I understand that the TMP update is an even more appropriate place to consider this subject and I will continue to try to generate some discussion around this topic in the context of the TMP update public consultations.

I hope that you might find the time to familiarize yourself with its contents and think about what parts of it might have some relevance to the Ottawa situation.  If you find it helpful perhaps you could forward to other committee colleagues for them to start thinking about as well?

 

Thanks, John

 

 

 

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From: John Verbaas [mailto:jver...@rogers.com]
Sent: November-07-12 3:09 PM
To: 'peterd...@ottawa.ca'; 'Wilkinson, Marianne'
Subject: Some follow-up thoughts from CCC's presentation to transportation committee today re. roads funding

Marianne, and Peter, I wish to thank you for taking some time to follow-up from my presentation given today at the transportation committee with some of your thoughts and reactions.

 

That is appreciated as preparing a presentation and sitting through the meeting awaiting for the opportunity to present represents a significant investment in time.

 

This email is to follow up on my point #4 re. sources of funding for operating the road network.  Peter, I wish to acknowledge that I understand the point that you made that there are many things our taxes pay for which may not have a direct causal link to our level of use of that service (as in your education example).  However, just citing one such example like that isn't sufficient in my mind to dismiss the topic.

 

Let me give you a counter example. Water and Wastewater.  We pay for these entirely according to our usage of them, and the City goes through a lot of effort to accomplish this (water meters in every dwelling, data collection and billing and account mgmt, etc).   One of the reasons we charge for these services is to place some incentives on conservation and minimizing their usage (since expanding that infrastructure is very costly).

 

All of these elements applies very similarly to roads and I would like to encourage you to seriously think about the opportunities and benefits that could arise for covering more of the cost of roads more clearly from those who use them the most.  You should take seriously the fact that 30-40% of households in the downtown do not own cars yet they contribute as much to operation of the ever expanding road system as a suburban household with 2 or 3 cars.  (In fact we often pay more as our tax assessments are typically higher and are growing at a greater rate typically than suburban assessments).

 

I know this is not an easy topic to solve and it may take many years to evolve. But we have examples being set more and more by other jurisdictions.  I'm sure one reason that Toronto has been granted access to other revenue tools is because they have taken the topic seriously, done some homework and engaged in conversation with the other levels of government.  Ottawa should consider taking this topic more seriously too.  We are the 2nd biggest municipality in the province after Toronto.

 

Thanks again for your time and I look forward to engaging with you on this and other transportation related topics again in the future.

 

John

Chair: City Centre Coalition
Transportation Committee: Action Sandy Hill

 

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[brian tansey]

Im not usually a nay sayer or pessimist when it comes to in effect 'green' thinking / inquiries ...   such as yours John in this situation ...  BUT

given all that has gone on over the last few years in Council ...I'd have to say that one of the citizenry's main problems is that most Councillors do not do the hard work   ie . quite simply take the time to do their homework, on most issues that have any degree of complexity to them ; Lansdowne was just one of the bigger illustrations of this

so if Clark and or Wilkinson do it here, I'll be pleasantly surprised ; we will KNOW if they have .....  because they WILL connect with other Councillors in support of your line of enquiry.

Brian Tansey

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[Jon Legg]

Hi John, Brian and other CCC members,

 

From “the cheap seats”, i.e. as a former member of the CCC and transportation director of ASH, I’d like to congratulate John for pushing City Councillors to give some thought toward the future of transportation in Ottawa.

 

Specifically, how can Ottawa can keep financing an ever-growing network of roads under the present revenue system, with the elements of unfairness that exist at present regarding city-centre non-car owners continuing to pay more via their property taxes.

 

I agree with Brian that doing the hard work may be a failing of Councillors, but pushing them to show some imagination is probably all the more necessary, because their tendency is most likely not to think outside the present box unless they are pushed to do so.

 

Best regards,

 

Jon

 

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