Manhattan has seen almost 50,000 fewer cars per day thanks to a congestion charge. Should Toronto consider it?

Traffic is shown on the Gardiner Expressway in this file photo.

Justin Ha does what he can to avoid driving in Toronto’s peak traffic.

The University of Toronto student lives in the city’s east end and uses transit to get to school as much as possible, but sometimes he needs to drive and borrowing a car from his parents or using a car-share is unavoidable.

“There’s always that like, level of stress that any driver would feel driving at that time of day,” he told CP24.com. “Obviously, there are also unexpected cases. There was one time on a Friday evening I was stuck at the 401 for two hours because there was a tanker truck accident.”

Alessandro Sisti knows the feeling as well. The Markham resident often goes downtown to visit friends or, as a caregiver, to make trips to the hospital. Trips that would often take nearly 40 minutes with no traffic take nearly double that at peak times.

“At best I’m resigned to the situation, right? Like, it’s grudging acceptance,” he said. “But other feelings might be I’m worried about whether I’ll get somewhere on time, I might be frustrated at how long it’s taking.”

They’re not alone. Gridlock is frequently cited as a top concern among GTA residents and it’s no secret that Toronto is a city choking on congestion.

A 2023 study by the Toronto Region Board of Trade estimated that congestion costs the GTA $11 billion a year. Another report released just months ago by the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CANCEA) estimated that congestion costs the GTHA $47 billion in lost economic opportunities and social impacts.

While the problem has become a feature of life in Toronto, it isn’t unique to our city. This month, New York City made headlines around the world when it started implementing a USD $9 congestion charge for vehicles travelling south of Central Park on weekdays from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on weekends from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tolls during off-peak hours are USD $2.25.

Revenue from the charge is being funneled into the city’s transit system.

While the plan received mixed reviews from the public, the city logged a 7.5 per cent drop in traffic into the congestion area in the first week of implementation. That amounted to 43,000 fewer cars coming into the busy city core per day, compared to the previous year.

New York is not alone. London, Stockholm and Singapore have also implemented congestion charges in an effort to tame gridlock.

But Manhattan marks a North American first.

It’s the sort of policy that is often cited by urbanists as a possible game-changer for cities, but less often implemented by politicians wary of blowback from voters.

“The fact that Manhattan has brought in a congestion charge is the most important transportation policy in North America right now,” Professor Matti Siemiatycki told CP24.com.

Siemiatycki, who serves as director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto, said that while congestion charging has been used around the world, it had until now not made it to North America, a region where cities are heavily dependent on cars.

“It’s that old saying, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere, right? It’s kind of interesting to see if this works in New York, does it have the legs to go elsewhere?”

More specifically, could it come to Toronto?

Would it work in Toronto?

Theoretically Toronto could implement a similar congestion charge for coming into the city, but there are a couple of important differences between Toronto and Manhattan.

Manhattan uses a cordon congestion charge, meaning that the charge area is defined by strict geographic boundaries where equipment is in place to track licence plates.

Doing something similar here could be “challenging,” Siemiatycki said, because there are so many more entry points to Toronto’s downtown core, compared to Manahttan, which is an island.

There’s also an economic consideration.

“Our downtown has recovered much slower than other downtowns,” Siemiatycki said. “So we really have to model this out and make sure that we’re not harming the downtown core.”

He said an alternate model could be adding tolls to the highways which run around the city.

“I’m much more inclined to have a toll on what I would call the inner ring of the highway system,” he said. The 401, the 427, the DVP and the Gardiner. Those are where there’s huge congestion.”

Toronto has contemplated road charges in the past, but the idea has usually been shut down. While former Mayor John Tory proposed tolling the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway back in 2017, then-premier Kathleen Wynne quashed the idea, saying conditions were not right.

Since then, the political will to implement some sort of congestion charge on Toronto’s busiest roads has not been strong.

While Toronto City Council adopted a three-year congestion management plan last fall, a charge on congestion was not part of the plan.

In an email to CTV News, Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie confirmed city staff were “not in favour of a congestion charge” last fall when updating the 2023-2026 congestion management plan. Instead, Mayor Olivia Chow has pledged to hire 75 more traffic agents to fan out at the city’s busiest intersections.

McKelvie said the plan also includes “many initiatives” such as better coordination and control of construction activities in the right-of-way, and a new framework for special event approvals to minimize impacts on traffic.

Even if council were in favour of adding a congestion charge, it would likely require cooperation from the province. And while the Ford government has undertaken massive transit investments in the GTA, with plans to expand the subway system as well as boost service on the GO network, it has also so far ruled out tolls or charges.

In an email, Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria’s office said the Ford government “will never add a tax or toll to any road in Ontario” when asked about the idea.

“We remain focused on building the critical infrastructure we need, including nearly $100 billion for new roads and transit to get people where they need to go each and every day,” Sarkaria’s office said.

While comparisons are often drawn between Toronto and New York City, Coun. Brad Bradford suggested the two are also “significantly different” in a key respect: transit.

“The reality is they (New York) have an extremely robust and ubiquitous transit network that covers the entirety of the city,” he said. “That is not the case in Toronto.”

Transit options key

Experts say that while many residents might view Toronto as a world-class city, the reality is that it lags far behind other transit systems around the world, both in terms of ridership and system size.

“It seems overly punitive to effectively tax folks who are stuck in their cars not because it’s their preference, not because it’s their choice, but because they don’t have another option,” Bradford said.

On that point, the experts agree.

“To make sure that this is done equitably, you have to have the public transit in place,” Siemiatycki said.

As an example, he cites a recent trip he took from Toronto’s east end to Newmarket by car in the middle of the day.

“It was 45 minutes by car and it was over two hours by public transit. Now that is not a viable alternative,” he said.

In order to make transit a truly viable option for people, he said, the system would require “all-hands-on deck” improvements not just in the downtown core, but in the suburbs as well, he said.

“What I’m describing is going to require a dramatic improvement in public transit in Etobicoke, in North York, in Scarborough and in Vaughan, Markham, Newmarket, Mississauga, Brampton. That’s what this is going to take in order to make it viable for people to have a real alternative.”

With or without a charge, congestion has cost

Siemiatycki stressed that while congestion charges are “not a magic solution on their own,” they should still be considered as part of the toolkit of congestion management solutions.

While ruling them out might sound like the cost of living is being kept down, he said in fact people are still paying a high cost from congestion, just not one they can perceive as easily as a $10 charge.

“Part of the reason Toronto is such a high-cost jurisdiction is because of the congestion,” he said. “Congestion has a price. And we have data that’s showing that we have among the worst congestion in the world and that that has a cost.”

Matthias Sweet, an associate Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, sounded a similar note.

“Unless you take a policy like that (congestion pricing) then you’re basically saying traffic congestion is not as bad the burden of potential solutions” said Sweet, an expert in congestion management.

He pointed out that expanding transit and roads alone will not be enough to curb the sort of congestion that is choking the city.

“There are too meany reasons to travel in Toronto right now,” he said, “No matter how much you build out the system, whether it’s by transit or otherwise… people are wanting to go places and they’re wanting to do things here in Toronto.”

Well it doesn’t seem like Toronto is on its way to implementing a Manhattan like congestion charge anytime soon, it’s possible that GTA politicians may have underestimated Toronto residents.

Both Ha and Sisti Say they’re in favor of a congestion charge if it means fewer cars on the road and less time spent in traffic.

“I know that most people don’t love the idea,” Sisti said. “However, here’s what I do think. I think that I think that if the charge were put in place and people realized how much time they can save, I think there are people who would see a lot of value in that.”

With files from AP