Vancouver appears to be ready to charge drivers a traffic toll on roads.
Based on the increased traffic, Vancouver has been seeing in the past few years, there has been a growing concern around congestion in the city. With that, demands for managing polluting vehicles and better controlling the flow of cars and public transportation across Metro Vancouver has also increased.
Earlier this year, there were talk about charging drivers a fee to enter the downtown Vancouver area. Now, there is a suggestion to implement tolls to charge drivers using specific roads.
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Traffic in Vancouver
According to a report in the National Observer, Vancouver has the worst traffic in Canada, and it’s expected to get worse. The report says that by 2040, 1 million more people will move to Metro Vancouver. This will mean an additional 600,000 vehicles on the roads.
Vancouver is connected to various parts of Metro Vancouver via a limited number of main streets and bridges. Anyone that has to commute for work can attest to major traffic jams at certain junctions.
Not only is it frustrating to be stuck at bottlenecks, but the bigger issue is that there is an increase of gas emissions. Currently vehicle emissions make up a third of that province’s pollution. As a result, council is considering a more effective way to cut down on traffic.
How Will Tolls Work?
The ideas of “mobility pricing” has been thrown around.
This refers to charging vehicles for road usage based on distance or a point-charge (a toll). This idea is not new and has been discussed in past years as well. However, considering that there is ongoing talk of moving people out of cars and more towards transits and bikes in Vancouver, a toll may not be far-fetched this time.
If a traffic toll was implemented, Vancouver would be the first city in North America to apply it on actual roads.
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