Transit

By Frank de Jong, 19 April, 2013

Letters:
Tolls, Taxes: Globe and Mail: April 19, 2013

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is right to forge ahead with Toronto-area transit upgrades, even over the complaints of parochial mayors. However, instead of new taxes and tolls – which will pit suburban dwellers against downtown residents and businesses – the new transit should be financed by collecting the rise in land values that the new infrastructure itself will generate.

Land-value capture makes warranted transit “self-financing,” with no need for politically unpopular new tolls or taxes.

By Frank de Jong, 29 November, 2012

Dedicated transit tax runs out of gas fast.
http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=190063

Car culture councillors would quickly vote down Adam Giambrone’s suggested 3¢ transit-dedicated gas tax (NOW, November 22-28, circulation 400,000).

And even if it did pass, huge numbers of car people would tank up outside Toronto, driving and polluting even more.

Giambrone says the property tax base is already “overburdened,” but equally so are the income tax base and the sales tax base.

A Land Value Tax is a better way to finance transit.

By Anonymous (not verified), 23 February, 2011

Toronto's mayor is on the right track with his suggestion to use "tax-increment financing" to pay for new transit. The best way to finance transit is indeed by collecting the upkick in land values (economic rent) so that the unearned increment generated by the new infrastructure goes to pay for that infrastructure, rather than financing it out of general revenue by taxing distant taxpayers who won't benefit from it.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/marcus-gee/the-for…