Political courage will be needed to fix transit woes

Doug Ford thinks his misguided highway plans will get him re-elected. He might be right, Nov. 24

Your columnist says when it comes to transportation, “the critics don’t have any better ideas — they are understandably anti-sprawl, but also against road tolls and revenue tools.” Well, not quite. Organizations such as ours have long supported a variety of tools to fund transit. We think road tolls, a motor vehicle registration tax and a parking levy would all make sense. They would give residents another reason to leave the car at home — or not buy one — while providing substantial dollars for streetcars, subways and buses.

A few years back, KPMG found that the parking levy alone could generate net annual revenue of up to $535 million.

We do have good ideas. We just need political leaders courageous enough to implement them.

Gideon Forman, Toronto, climate change and transportation policy analyst,

The David Suzuki Foundation