We know what Premier Doug Ford wants to do about the GTA’s congestion problem: build the world’s longest, most expensive highway tunnel under the 401. He wants this despite being warned by Ontario’s civil service that the idea comes with enormous red flags, not least the possibility of “roadway collapse,” initially reported by Global News, the kind of thing the provincial government is usually keen to avoid for the province’s busiest transportation artery. No matter, though.
The sheer cost of this still entirely hypothetical tunnel would be staggering, and even imprecise estimates give us an idea of the opportunity cost. A low-ball estimate would start at $50 billion, enough to replace all of the farebox revenue currently collected by the TTC for decades. The difference is that making the TTC fare-free would help vastly more people than a highway tunnel, even as Ford insists his tunnel would include some transit aspect.
(Just eliminate the highway part! The train would move three-quarters of the actual humans, instead of their vehicles, and you could get away with a smaller, cheaper tunnel!)
But congestion in the GTA is real, and it does call out for a genuine solution. The right-leaning government of New Zealand has announced a policy that is intended to address not just congestion but the changing makeup of the auto fleet. It could be a model for Ontario to follow — and one that the current government will likely never consider.
For decades, New Zealand has had a system of road user charges for heavy commercial trucks, with vehicle operators effectively buying road access in blocks of 1,000 kilometres. There are different rates for vehicles of different sizes and weights, as larger vehicles impose more wear and tear on the roads. Earlier this month the government in Wellington, elected in 2023, announced that it will expand the road user charge system to all vehicles on the highways while abolishing its gasoline tax.
The government’s explanation is pretty simple: the growing share of electric and hybrid cars on New Zealand’s roads has led to declining revenues from the gasoline tax, while the costs of road use haven’t gone down. That money needs to be replaced somehow.
“As our vehicle fleet changes, so too must the way we fund our roads. It isn’t fair to have Kiwis who drive less and who can’t afford a fuel-efficient car paying more than people who can afford one and drive more often,” said minister of transportation Chris Biship. “This is a change that simply has to happen.”
The move is also part of the coalition agreement between the two governing conservative parties. Notably, that agreement also includes a pledge to implement time-based road charges to manage congestion in Auckland, the country’s largest city.
There are always reasons to question the sincerity of any measure — in this case, electric vehicle proponents see this less as a highway funding measure and more as a dressed-up way of discouraging EV adoption, another front in the culture wars. I genuinely don’t have sufficient knowledge of Kiwi politics to have an opinion on that, but it’s clear enough that EVs keep getting both better and cheaper and so long as that’s the case the share of EVs in our fleet will continue to grow, with a commensurate reduction in gasoline tax revenue. In other words, this isn’t just a New Zealand problem — it’s coming for every jurisdiction sooner or later.
The Ford government’s answer to this problem is that it’s not a problem. Indeed, it’s worked to reduce Ontario’s revenues from vehicle owners, removing the license plate sticker fees and cutting gasoline taxes outright to the tune of $1.2 billion. It has also legislated a prohibition on road tolls on any provincially owned highways. (That legislation cannot bind future governments and doesn’t apply to the privately-operated section of the 407.) In short, no form of charges on road users are coming so long as Ford is premier.
If you’re a driver you might think this is all fine — you pay your taxes, they pay for the highways, who cares if the money comes from your paycheque or a road charge? The problem is that not every vehicle causes the same damage to the roads, or the same congestion. Those are two problems overwhelmingly caused by the largest, heavy commercial trucks and paying for the highways overwhelmingly out of general revenues means the primary beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse are big trucking companies.
Ontario has been mulling the idea of subsidizing heavy trucks to use the 407 as a means of decongesting the 401. But an equivalent incentive for trucking companies would be to institute a New Zealand-style RUC for the 401, at minimum for the stretches that parallel the 407. As New Zealand is doing, the system could be expanded to EVs and perhaps automated vehicles in the future to reflect their impacts on the road system.
None of that is going to happen before the next election. But it’s an idea worth considering by the opposition parties, should any of them be in a position to make policy in 2029.
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