News & Updates

We have been drawing attention to the need to increase parking rates in Ottawa, for a few years, and we might be making progress. Progress is sorely needed.

The cost of metered on-street one- and two-hour parking rates have been frozen in Ottawa since 2008. Meanwhile, the City of Ottawa has increased OC Transpo single-ride transit fares by 80% since 2008.

A single-ride on OC Transpo used to cost $2 in 2008. Fares will increase to $3.60 per ride later this year (once Light Rail Transit launches).

Why would people choose to ride transit instead of driving their cars if transit user fees are always increasing? Sadly, the City is planning to increase public transit user fees every year by 2.5%.

We think this sends the wrong signal. More should be done to encourage people to ride transit, because more people riding public transit will reduce air pollution, and it will help lessen congestion

Due to our work, scrutiny is being placed on frozen on-street parking rates. As noted in the Ottawa Citizen, a report is being written for Council's consideration that may recommend improvements. We hope improvements include ending the apparent tax advantage provided to surface parking lots in the downtown.

On a related note, in the previous term of City Council, we worked with City Councillors so that consideration would be given to easing road congestion. In 2016, this led to a vote at City Council that unfortunately went the wrong way (read On congestion causes and solutions, Ottawa turns its back on reason).

Some Councillors were undeterred, however, and they found money in their office budgets to fund a study on congestion and possible solutions, which was released at an event we hosted in March 2017. The report recommended the best way to reduce congestion in Ottawa would be to increase parking rates.

The Healthy Transportation Coalition will continue to push for increased parking rates, and more affordable public transit.

We will also continue to push for using parking revenue to fund more sustainable transportation, such as bike parking at bus stops to encourage multi-modal transportation. In our work related to Budgets 2018, and 2019, and thanks to the leadership of Councillors Keith Egli and Shawn Menard, we won $30,000 each year to fund ring-and-post bike parking at bus stops.

There is still so much more we need to do to improve the situation, and with your help, we can get there. Please become a member or donate to support our work today.

Dear Mayor Watson and City Councillors,

A public conversation is happening in Ottawa about how our streets can be made safe for all. Last month, hundreds took part in a silent bike ride following the tragic death of a cyclist on Laurier Avenue, in front of City Hall. People are speaking up in the mainstream media, on social media and in messages to you, their representatives. It’s clear that many in our community want change.   

Two important motions to protect everyone who uses our streets are coming to Council on June 12. The first calls for Council to adopt a strong Vision Zero policy and make immediate changes to protect vulnerable road users. The second asks Council to dedicate the $57-million federal gas tax transfer to making our cycling network safe.

We ask that you pass both motions in full and begin the urgent work needed to make our streets safe for all. It’s a matter of public health.

A strong Vision Zero policy, properly funded, would improve the health of our community in several ways.

Many municipalities in Canada and around the world have already adopted Vision Zero— an ethical approach to transportation that makes safety the top priority. Under Vision Zero, no deaths or serious injuries are acceptable, and the transportation system is designed to prevent them.

Bringing Ottawa’s streets up to the Vision Zero standard would save lives and prevent life-changing injuries that result from collisions. No one should be at risk of death or serious injury on our streets.

But the health benefits wouldn’t stop there. A Vision Zero approach would also encourage the active modes of transportation that make us, our communities and our environments healthier.

An investment in Vision Zero streets is an investment in the health of our children and youth. The expert statement in the 2018 ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth—the most comprehensive assessment of child and youth physical activity in Canada—notes that active children and youth are healthier, with improved heart, bone and muscle health, as well as a lower incidence of type 2 diabetes. These experts also point to evidence that active children and youth think better, learn better, and have better emotional, psychological and social well-being.

Sadly, the Report Card revealed a grade of D− for active transportation among children and youth in Canada—much worse than the global average of C. Only 21% of 5- to 19-year-olds in Canada typically use active modes of transportation to get to and from school. The numbers for Ottawa aren’t any more encouraging: the Ottawa Community Wellbeing Report 2018 noted that only 25% of 12- to 17-year-olds in our city get the recommended amount of physical activity each day—the equivalent of a D− grade.

What would happen to these numbers if Vision Zero routes for children and youth to walk and bike to schools, community and recreation centres, parks, and other places, were a priority?  

The shift to Vision Zero will require significant financial resources. It is a necessary investment in public health and safety with a substantial return. The Ottawa Cycling Plan, for example, cites an estimate from Ottawa Public Health that a 5% increase in the city’s cycling mode share can result in an annual benefit of $16 million. We need much more of this kind of broad analysis to inform spending at all levels of government.

The shift to Vision Zero will also require long-term, forward thinking and leadership (“vision”!). We ask you to lead now by passing the two safe streets motions in full on June 12. The result will be a safer and healthier city.   

Sincerely,

Richard Annett, Executive Director, Western Ottawa Community Resource Centre

Naini Cloutier, Executive Director, Somerset West Community Health Centre

David Gibson, Executive Director, Sandy Hill Community Health Centre

Simone Thibault, Executive Director, Centretown Community Health Centre

Mark Tremblay, Director, Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute; Professor and Scientist, Department of Pediatrics, University of Ottawa; President, Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance

Michelle Perry, Member-at-Large, Board of Directors, Healthy Transportation Coalition

So, OC Transpo staff have responded with a memo in response to Councilor Mckenney's question regarding trialing electric transit buses in Ottawa.  The memo reads like a typical government document written by a bureaucracy looking for every way they can to justify the status quo (in this case, a 100% diesel bus fleet).  OC Transpo says they'll watch what other cities are doing and maybe get around to trialing a few buses in 2025.  Meanwhile, 14 global cities (including Montreal) have committed to not buy any more diesel buses after 2025 (before OC Transpo even gets around to trying one out!).  In Canada leading cities are well into trying out electric buses.  These include Toronto (60 electric buses), Edmonton (50 electric buses), Montreal (40 electric buses).  Where is Ottawa?  For more info check out www.sustainable-bus.com

OC Transpo acknowledges that their buses generate 44% of all the City's corporate emissions but that fact and the recent declaration of a climate emergency doesn't seem to be enough to motivate them to do anything about this for 5 or more years.  In fact over the 2018-2020 period OC Transpo is buying 300 brand new diesel buses.  They say, bringing the LRT into service is good enough for now.

This memo goes on to trot out a litany of reasons why trialing electric buses would be complicated.  Do we try out a  bus with big batteries or small batteries?, how would we find space in our garage for the charging infrastructure?  we need to train new mechanics, what if the electricity supply to the garage doesn't have enough charging capacity?  (hmm no problem running 34 electric trains to the garage though!).  They're more expensive so we'd have to study whether we'd save enough money in reduced diesel vs the cost of electricity.  In short, this is too much for us to try and deal with right now.

Completely missing from this memo is any acknowledgement of the well known and well understood benefits of electric buses or of their rate of adoption by other transit agencies.  The electricity costs per km of travel are easily 1/3 of the diesel costs per km of travel.  Electric vehicles are quieter, smoother and more pleasant to ride in, dramatically less polluting, and simpler to maintain.  One of the biggest challenges to electric vehicles, the limited range and extra time required to recharge (vs refilling a diesel tank) are much less of a factor for transit buses because the number of kms they need to travel in a day are nearly constant and well known and they can be recharged again each night.   Transit buses are very high mileage vehicles with a predictable mileage per day usage pattern  -- the perfect scenario for electric vehicles vs fossil fuel powered vehicles.

Maybe the biggest mistake was that OC Transpo was asked about a trial of such buses.  What we need is just to get on with starting to migrate the bus fleet to electric.  There are 385,000 electric buses in operation worldwide.  This is a technology that is well beyond the trial stage.  It's time to get on with it.

Traffic congestion. Parking problems. Collisions. Noise and air pollution. Unaffordability and inequity. Sedentary living. Social isolation. Ugly streetscapes. Fear of crime. These are modern plagues in our cities.

What will rid us of them? The status quo of expanding roadways? A widespread move to efficient/electric cars? No and no.

What we need is a shift from a single-minded focus on car travel to a multi-modal mindset that prioritizes the affordable and inclusive modes of transportation – cycling, walking and public transit.

This was the message Todd Litman, of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (VTPI), gave to nearly 100 people gathered for a Planning & Transportation Equity workshop held recently by the Healthy Transportation Coalition.

Walking, cycling and public transit: overlooked and undervalued

One of three expert speakers at the event, Litman talked about how to plan for equity, affordability and community health.

Walking, cycling and public transit provide many benefits that are often overlooked or undervalued, according to Litman. He challenged us to apply the kind of comprehensive analysis of planning and transportation issues that the VTPI is well-known for.

And he provided a great example: a chart clearly showing what cycling, walking and public transit can do for a city (and where expanded roadways and efficient/electric cars fall short).

Walking, cycling and busing our way to a friendlier, safer, more affordable city

Litman also pointed to some fascinating research that demonstrates how prioritizing affordable and inclusive transportation modes solves not only environmental problems but also social and economic ones.

Inviting more walking and cycling in a city can reduce social isolation, for example. A survey in Vancouver showed that people travelling by foot or bike are much more likely to have a friendly social interaction than people travelling by car (with transit riders somewhere in the middle).

There is also evidence that transit-oriented cities are safer cities. Litman pointed to research from the US showing that transit-oriented cities have about half the traffic fatality rates as more automobile-oriented cities.

Litman also introduced the concept of affordable-accessible housing: inexpensive homes in compact, mixed-used, walkable and bikeable neighbourhoods with good transit service. Research from the US shows that housing and transportation account for more than half of all spending for all but the richest households – which is unaffordable. Often in Ottawa it’s an either/or: either affordable housing far from services, or expensive housing in a connected neighbourhood.

We can make Ottawa a walking, cycling and transit city

Right now, the City is updating a document that will determine the fate of the city for years to come: the Official Plan.

For equity, affordability and community health, the Official Plan needs to:

1. Prioritize the affordable and inclusive modes of transportation: cycling, walking and public transit.
2. End roadway expansions for car traffic and instead expand and improve the city’s walking, cycling and public transit networks.
3. Stop the construction of car-dependent neighbourhoods and instead create more compact, mixed-use, walkable and bikeable neighbourhoods with good transit service and affordable housing.

You can tell the City what you want to see in the Official Plan through an online feedback form. But act soon -- the form is open only until June 30, 2019.

The Healthy Transportation Coalition has been working on transportation equity in Ottawa since 2014. And, we’ve won some important victories, working with our allies:

• the EquiPass, monthly & single-ride versions, offers a 50% discount on OC Transpo prices for people living on low incomes;
• 20 parcels of government-owned land should now be used to build affordable housing near rapid transit stations;
• in Budget 2019, we won a transit fare freeze on the Access, Community, and EquiPasses; and
• we've won some important pedestrian and cycling improvements in lower-income neighbourhoods.

In 2016 and 2017, we held two transportation equity summits at City Hall (read the 2017 Summit report here).

In 2018, in partnership with the City for All Women Initiative, we conducted community consultations with equity-seeking groups to ask them what they think of transportation, planning and equity issues.

But if we are to continue to make progress, much more needs to be done.

The City of Ottawa is updating its Official Plan and Transportation Master Plan and has said it will be putting a greater emphasis on equity than it previously did.

Now is the time for you to tell the City how it can better address inequities here. How do you think the Official Plan and Transportation Master Plan need to be improved? Get engaged, visit the City’s Official Plan website, www.ottawa.ca/newop.

Get in touch with us via email ([email protected]) or on social media (https://twitter.com/healthtransport; or facebook.com/healthytransportation).

Here’s a scenario: you and a friend have spent a pleasant evening out. It’s late, and it’s cold, and so you both decide to splurge on a ride home. You live in different directions, so you’ll need two vehicles. You each request a vehicle, and after a short wait, your ride arrives.

Once home, you text your friend to make sure she got home safely and find out that she is still waiting in the cold! She uses a motorized wheelchair to get around, and there isn’t an accessible vehicle nearby.

There is a danger that this will become the new normal in Ottawa.

Against the advice of accessibility advocates, the City of Ottawa decided in 2016 not to require transportation companies such as Uber and Lyft to provide wheelchair-accessible service, as other cities do. Instead, the City decided to ask the companies for a voluntary surcharge that would go into an “accessibility fund” meant to improve accessibility in other ways.

The City’s consultants, KPMG, recommended that the accessibility surcharge be 30 cents per ride. Total surcharges for these companies in other cities are much higher: US$0.72 per ride in Chicago and US$2.75 in New York City.

Accessibility advocates have no shortage of ideas as to how money in the fund could be spent: when consulted by the City in 2018, they put forward 33 recommendations. The top priority was to increase the number of accessible vehicles. Also near the top of the list was creating an online, self-serve booking system for ParaTranspo.

Unfortunately, the accessibility surcharge has shrunk from the recommended 30 cents per ride to a mere 7 cents per ride — far too meager to make much of a difference. In fact, City staff have already warned accessibility advocates not to expect too much from the accessibility fund.

With the possibility that companies such as Uber will take over more of the market — diluting the already often inadequate service for people using motorized wheelchairs and scooters — that’s just not good enough. The KPMG report clearly sets out the risks:

The economics of the taxi industry have been changing with the introduction of new competition. In New York City there are reports of many taxis being parked because there is insufficient demand. Should that occur in Ottawa, the incentive could be to park the accessible vehicles first, as they are the most expensive to operate. There has already been concern expressed that accessible taxis may not be on the road as often as other taxis.

Other cities, including the City of Toronto, simply require companies such as Uber to provide wheelchair-accessible service with the same fees and wait-times as non-accessible service. We can do that here, too.

And in the short term, the very least the City can do is to increase the accessibility surcharge to 30 cents per ride or even more, so that we have the funds to take real steps to make transportation equitable for all — a very reasonable expectation in 2019.

Take Action!

Tell the Mayor and your City Councillor that you want:

• the accessibility surcharge for companies like Uber to be immediately increased to 30 cents per ride or more; and
• work to begin on requiring companies like Uber to provide wheelchair-accessible service at the same rates and wait-times as their non-accessible service.

You can email the Mayor at [email protected] and find your Councillor’s contact information here.

You can also tell your Councillor in person that you expect action on this file at a budget 2019 consultation. Find out when your Councillor is holding one here.

And you can fill out a short survey about what you want to see in Budget 2019 here or email directly to [email protected]. 

Then ask your friends and neighbours to do the same!

Thanks!

BIG changes are on the horizon in Bells Corners, all thanks to our committed group of volunteers and the united community of Bells Corners.

On July 22^nd, the Healthy Transportation Coalition hosted a public event: Bells Corners Pop-Up Bike Lane & BBQ to demonstrate the residents of Bells Corners’ strong desires to have a safe, separated cycle track and speed reduction implemented on Moodie Drive.  Working with City Councillor Rick Chiarelli, the event closed down two lanes of traffic on Moodie Drive in order to install a temporary bike line upon which residents of Bells Corners could cycle safely from 10AM-4PM.  We wanted to demonstrate the pressing need for safe cycling infrastructure and a speed reduction on Moodie Drive.  The widespread success of the event shattered our expectations.

More than 100 residents attended the event.

500 residents signed our petition, which asks the City to implement a separated cycle track and speed reduction on Moodie Drive.

CBC’s radio broadcast program, All in a Day interviewed Vice President of the Healthy Transportation Coalition, Trevor Haché, and Bells Corners resident, John Netto.
You can find the radio broadcast here: All in a Day Radio Segment

CBC News, CTV News, and Radio Canada covered the event. 
CBC: CBC Article
CTV:  CTV Article
Radio-Canada:  Radio Canada Article  

It is imperative that we capitalize on the momentum generated from our outpour of success.  With City elections around the corner, the opportunity for the implementation of cycling infrastructure and speed reductions is imminent; in order to progress, we must act now. 

To ensure that we can maintain momentum and achieve the separate cycle track and speed reduction on Moodie Drive, I encourage everyone to help our Bells Corners neighbours by:

• Sending an email to City Councillor, Rick Chiarelli, urging him to prioritize our petition asks in current city planning initiatives. The link to the email can be found here.

• Calling City Councillor, Rick Chiarelli to ask how he plans to implement the cycling infrastructure and a speed reduction, which has been clearly requested by 500 members of Bells Corners who have signed the petition.

We have ways to go before seeing the speed reduction and cycle tracks implemented on Moodie Drive, but if we work together to build from this momentum, we can make more progress, more quickly. 

Many members of the Healthy Transportation Coalition were pleased to voice support for the City of Ottawa to study the causes of traffic congestion and the full range of solutions.

After receiving the support of 70% of Transportation Committee members at the April 6th meeting, the matter was referred to City Council for consideration on April 13th.

City Councillor David Chernushenko, Transportation Committee Chair Keith Egli, and six other city councillors should be commended for their support of the proposal, but unfortunately a majority of council voted against it.

Click here to watch a video of the debate that occured at City Council on April 13, 2016.

As was mentioned in Metro Ottawa press coverage of the decision, not everyone was pleased with the outcome of the vote:

Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Keith Egli said scrapping the study over fears of tolls does a disservice to Ottawa residents.

“We have to address (congestion) and the only way to do it is with knowledge and information.”

Instead, most councillors turned their backs on reason, said Trevor Hache, of the Healthy Transportation Coalition.

“They decided they didn’t even want the facts,” he said. “They didn’t even want to have the analysis of … the causes of congestion and possible solutions.”

A few days later, the Ottawa Citizen's David Reevely, a respected journalist that covers City Hall, wrote about how Mayor Jim Watson's positions on a lot of issues are 'simple and wrong' and his opposition to studying congestion pricing is "dumbest and saddest of all".

Below is documentation of the significant support that was voiced, at the Transportation Committee, by community organizations and individuals, in favour of the study proceeding:

• 14 community groups and 2 noteworthy individuals
• Centretown Community Health Centre
• Citizens' for Safe Cycling
• Champlain Park Community Association
• Ecology Ottawa
• Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee (and related PowerPoint)
• Geoff Stiles presentation
• Greenspace Alliance of Canada's Capital
• Healthy Transportation Coalition
• Old Ottawa East Community Association
• Ottawa Centre EcoDistrict

Ottawa’s recent decision to increase its emissions reduction target to 80% from 2012 levels by 2050 will require major changes to one sector in particular: transportation, currently responsible for 40% of the City’s community greenhouse gas emissions.

In a previous blog, Trevor Haché discussed how introducing congestion charges could help alleviate the City’s dependence on private vehicles and incidentally reduce the burden of road repair and maintenance. In this and subsequent blogs, I will look at experience with congestion charges in other cities.

As the previous blog mentioned, congestion charges have been (or are about to be) tried in various forms in a wide range of cities and countries, including a number of Canadian and U.S. cities, as well as in Europe and Asia. In addition to reducing congestion in inner cities, a major secondary benefit of these charges is revenue generation, and in particular creating revenue that can be used to offset the wear-and-tear of vehicle transport on the city’s roads—a major ongoing cost for both the city and the province. Congestion charges are also a very cost-effective way to incentivise the “modal shift” to public transport that Ottawa will need once its LRT network is implemented. And finally, they offer one solution to the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

But exactly how effective are congestion charges, and what experience from other jurisdictions could Ottawa use to ensure that the introduction of such charges will be successful? This blog tries to answer these questions by looking at a one city that has conducted a detailed post-implementation evaluation.

The best known example of congestion charges is Stockholm, which introduced road pricing on a provisional basis in 2006, and then on a more permanent basis in 2007. The provisional phase was intended to give citizens a chance to experience the effect of congestion charges--at a time when public resistance to the idea was considerable—before agreeing to institute them for the longer term. Following that phase, a referendum was held on the subject, which passed by a substantial majority. The charging system consists of a cordon around the inner city, with a time‐differentiated toll being charged in each direction. According to a recent analysis, traffic across the cordon has been reduced by around 20%, leading to substantial congestion reductions in and around the city.

It is useful to compare Stockholm’s situation with Ottawa’s, since the first objection to such comparative analyses is that cities are unique and such programmes are therefore not easily replicated.

First, Stockholm’s population is nearly identical with Ottawa’s: approx. 1 million. However around 2/3 of the city’s inhabitants live in the inner city, an area of some 35 km2. The population within the “toll zone” or cordon is around 330,000, of which 60,000 commute to workplaces outside the zone.

By comparison, 81% of Ottawa’s population lived in the “inner core” in 2001, but this has declined significantly in recent years as new outlying areas were incorporated into the city, and is probably more like 60% (the proportion “inside the Green Belt”) at present. On the other hand, Ottawa’s employment is heavily concentrated in the inner city (if we define this as the area within a 35 km2 “ring” around the Parliament buildings), as therefore is commuting. The main target of a congestion charge in Ottawa would therefore be suburban residents working in the inner city, rather than inner city residents working outside the core.

The main difference between Stockholm and Ottawa is the availability of public transit. Ottawa Transpo’s bus service is relatively efficient and heavily utilised for inner-city commuting, but less so for suburban transit. The advent of LRT services over the next 10-15 years will change this picture dramatically, but even then the city will have far less transit availability than Stockholm currently has. According to the Centre for Transport Studies:

In Stockholm, “60‐65% of all motorized person trips to and from the city centre are made by transit. During rush hours, the share increases to 80%. The public transport system in the county of Stockholm consists of a subway network with 100 stations and over a million trips per day, a commuter rail network with 51 stations and nearly a quarter of a million trips per day, five light rail lines with 98 stations with a bit more than 100 000 trips per day, and an extensive bus network with nearly a million trips per day.”

Despite the availability of transit options, Stockholm’s rush hour traffic density is three times that of its off-hour density, so private vehicle congestion was definitely a serious problem.

The differences between Stockholm and Ottawa are therefore smaller than might be expected, with transit availability the main distinguishing feature. The notion of an inner-city “cordon” would also differ, as in Ottawa’s case the main peripheral roads—176, 417, 17—do not “ring” the major employment areas but rather run through them. Still, these roads do funnel the majority of commuter traffic in and out the city, and would therefore present a logical target for cordon-based pricing, subject to a more detailed study of traffic flows during commuter periods.

The lessons learned (and ideally transferable) from the Stockholm experience are that (i) even a small decrease in congestion—20% in their case—will be perceived positively by road users; and (ii) a gradual or provisional introduction of congestion charges is preferable to a sudden imposition. As well, the lack of strong transit alternatives at present may lead to greater initial user resistance in Ottawa than was the case in Stockholm. At the same time, there is clearly a strong need for incentivising the transition to public transit when it does come, and congestion charges are an effective way to do that.

It should be noted as well that the Stockholm experience had strong national government support, and the referendum was even timed to coincide with national elections. Subsequent to the elections, the city was able to use the referendum success as a way to leverage major transport funding from the federal government, arguing that by improving revenue from commuters, the city was able to pay for a portion of new road development itself. Although it may seem ironic and counter-intuitive that a cordon charge was used to pay for new roads, this did make sense within the very different context of Swedish coalition politics. And of course Stockholm, unlike Ottawa, did not need to use the additional revenue to repair old roads, which were in very good condition!

A few other benefits of the Stockholm charge:

1. Travel times for commuters decreased by as much as 2/3 for peak travel periods, although this varied quite a bit for other travel periods.

2. Transit usage increased by 4-5%. Note that there were some additions to the transit network, intended to provide an additional stimulus to encourage modal switching.

3. CO2 emissions for the wider Stockholm region decreased by 2-3%.

4. Attitudes towards congestion charges improved dramatically both during the trial period and after, suggesting that “familiarity breeds acceptability.”

A detailed examination of the history and impacts of the Stockholm congestion fee experience, written in 2014, can be found at: http://swopec.hhs.se/ctswps/abs/ctswps2014_007.htm 

A cost-benefit analysis can found at: http://www.eltis.org/sites/eltis/files/case-studies/documents/stockholmcongestioncbaeliassonn0_8.pdf ;

Geoff Stiles

Carbon Impact Consultants

On March 2nd, Ottawa’s Transportation Committee will receive an estimate from City staff on the time and costs required to conduct a study on user fees for roads.

This is a result of a ‘direction to staff’ moved by committee member and City Councillor David Chernushenko on December 2nd. It was during the city’s 2016 Budget deliberations that two members of the Healthy Transportation Coalition (listen here to related audio from the meeting) urged the City to study the potential effectiveness of user fees for roads, and Chernushenko agreed it would be worthwhile to do so.

The leadership shown by Chernushenko, who is also Chair of the City of Ottawa’s Environment Committee, comes at a time when cities across the country are increasingly showing interest in the subject (see examples in Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal) and Ontario is moving forward with a pilot project in the Greater Toronto Area that will see the conversion of some high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes into high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes.

During the Budget 2016 presentations, Ottawa was reminded that Ontario’s Transportation Minister Steven Del Luca has said the province is willing to work with any Ontario municipality that wants to toll a road within its jurisdiction.

A commitment by Ottawa to study various options for a user-pay approach to roads was originally included in the Preliminary Policy Proposals (see User Pay on pages 10, 11) released in January 2013 related to the Building a Liveable Ottawa 2031 planning process, which later that year finalized updates to the city’s Official Plan and Transportation Master Plan. But, unfortunately, the commitment to study user fees for roads did not make it in to the final version of those documents.

This is not the first time user fees for roads in the nation’s capital has been proposed. Indeed, Ottawa is currently in the midst of studying how it might be able to remove thousands of transport trucks from its highly populated Lowertown and Sandy Hill neighbourhoods through the construction of a downtown truck tunnel. A feasibility study on building the tunnel is expected soon, and Jim Watson, Ottawa’s mayor, has said he would want the tunnel to be a toll tunnel to recoup the construction costs associated with building the large underground hole.

And, in 2013, City Councillor Stephen Blais had pushed the idea of charging a toll to non-residents of Ottawa driving into the City, creating congestion on Highway 174. At that time it was reported that Blais thought the plan could raise as much as $5.6 million a year for Ottawa and the move was justified because “traffic from outside the eastern border of the city is contributing to the congestion on the highway but those motorists don’t pay taxes to maintain the road.”

Indeed, there are a number of compelling reasons why Ottawa should move forward with studying a user pay approach for roads, not the least of which is that applying user fees to roads could help the City meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments.

And there are other important benefits that pricing congestion can help accomplish, such as revenue generation, cost savings to drivers, and increased health and safety, all of which were highlighted in a recent Pembina Institue report.

While Ottawa is doing a lot to create incentives for people to use public transit, spending billions of dollars on a new light rail transit system, the first phase of which is due to be completed in 2018, it is abundantly clear not enough is being done to create disincentives for unsustainable transportation behaviour.

Transportation currently accounts for about 40% of Ottawa’s ‘community’ greenhouse gas emissions (emissions created by people who live, work, and play in the nation’s capital are referred to as ‘community’ emissions in the city’s Air Quality and Climate Change Management Plan, while emissions generated by the city government’s operations are referred to as ‘corporate emissions’;).

It should also be noted that many of Ottawa’s 6,000 kilometres of roads it is responsible for operating and maintaining are in a state of disrepair. As was recently noted by the National Capital Heavy Construction Association, reports indicate that roads in the nation’s capital are worse than roads in many other Canadian cities:

• According to the Canadian Infrastructure Report Card, while almost 50% of roads in Canada are deemed to be in good or very good condition, the story in Ottawa is quite different.

• In the City of Ottawa, just 20% of all roads are deemed to be in Good to Very Good condition.

• The story gets even scarier when you look at Collector Roads, where over 50% are rated as being in Poor to Very Poor condition.

• The 2014 Ontario Municipal Benchmarking Initiative report would seem to confirm the results of the Infrastructure Report Card.

• The 2014 OMBI report revealed that Ottawa had the worst roads of the major cities participating in the benchmarking study.

• Only 19% of paved roads in Ottawa were rated as being in good or very good condition. This compares to a mean of 54%.

Ottawa is clearly having difficultly funding the proper maintenance and repair of its 6,000 kilometres of roads. The costs of repairing those roads increases exponentially the longer the roads are allowed to deteriorate. Due to a lack of financial resources, Ottawa recently decided to postpone the widening of the Airport Parkway.

An argument could be made that those driving on the roads daily, damaging them with their heavy vehicles, should be paying more of their fair share. Reports from the C.D. Howe Institute, using figures from Transport Canada, have shown that governments routinely do not recoup all the costs associated with building and maintaining our roadways:

“Gas taxes, vehicle licences and other revenues from drivers, which do little to curb congestion, only covered 53 percent of roadway expenses across Canada during the 2009/2010 fiscal year.” (see page 7, Figure 2)

Bolstered by success stories from around the world…

Source: Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission

… and in order to build on the good work of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, and Pembina Institute (both groups have produced great reports on the need for user fees for roads), it is time the nation’s capital showed leadership on this issue, and at a minimum, study the pros and cons of different user pay approaches for roads.

Given Ottawa’s numerous bridges, collector roads and Highways (417, 416, 7, and 174) within its jurisdiction, there are many areas of the city where pilot projects could be established.

We should not have to wait until the truck tunnel is constructed and tolled to see how effective road pricing will be. The city’s financial situation and climate change commitments demand that it take action now.