Experts propose congestion levy to cut Toronto gridlock, raise $500 million

TORONTO · University of Toronto researchers are proposing a congestion levy for downtown Toronto to alleviate gridlock and generate an estimated $500 million in revenue. The proposal, from Marianne Hatzopoulou and Steven Farber along with Toronto's first "Bicycle Mayor" Lanrick Bennett Jr., calls for a $9 charge to enter a zone bounded by St. Clair Avenue to the north, the Humber River to the west and the Don River to the east. The experts say such a toll would reduce traffic and push more drivers onto public transit, following the model of cities like London, Singapore and New York. Congestion pricing has become a widely used tool across the world to tackle gridlocked streets.

"The evidence around congestion charging is really clear," said Farber, a human geography professor at U of T. "It's essentially one of the only things that we can do that actually helps bring down congestion levels in dense urban environments like downtown Toronto." He said a congestion price would have two benefits: discouraging drivers from entering the city and collecting revenue to improve public transit. Farber noted Toronto is not building new highways or tearing down buildings for more roads. "Therefore, our only real policy levers are to curb the demand for car use," he said.

The group notes the charge would need to include exceptions for lower-income drivers and be paired with commensurate improvements in the TTC to ferry more riders. According to the School of Cities, similar schemes elsewhere have shown significant results. Traffic in London decreased by 30 per cent and average speeds rose by five kilometres an hour after its charge was implemented. Bus ridership in Singapore was boosted by eight per cent, and New York's congestion levy recently pulled in $550 million for the state government while boosting transit ridership by seven per cent.

A major obstacle is the provincial government, which removed the city's power to toll highways as part of its 2025 Bill 24. The city would need to negotiate with the province to get approval for any kind of congestion charge. In response to the proposal, Olivia Chow's team noted the mayor has appointed "the Toronto's first Chief Congestion Officer, hiring more than 100 traffic agents, expanding smart signals, shortening road closures and advancing a co-ordinated congestion action plan." The statement added, "the City of Toronto does not have the power to enact this levy, and the province has been clear it would not provide any such powers." Brad Bradford's team said his focus is on "the levers the City actually controls: construction co-ordination with one person accountable to the Mayor, published timelines and real consequences for projects that linger, traffic agents at the intersections that matter, transit lane enforcement, and a TTC reliable enough that people choose it, starting with a 15-minute service guarantee." The researchers suggest the $500 million revenue estimate does not account for dynamic pricing, where prices would go up or down depending on the time of day.

With files from Toronto Star