Mobility Pricing

[Trainguy]

“Mobility pricing is a key pillar of the Mayors’ Council’s 10-Year Vision that could fix Metro Vancouver’s unfair user pricing regime, significantly reduce congestion, and deliver fair and stable funding for our transit and transportation network,” said Gregor Robertson, Mayor of Vancouver and chair, Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation, in a release.

"During the election campaign, the Green Party came out in favour of the model to help cut traffic congestion and the NDP stated it would work with mayors to build a framework for a transportation plan, including mobility pricing."

Hold it a sec.... didn't the NDP campaign on No More Tolls? Maybe they are going to go with a vehicle levy instead. Any referendum on this would fail miserably like before. Stay tuned.....

[Aroundtheworld]

I did my thesis on what a fair and efficient mobility pricing system would look like. It has the following basic tenets:

1. Existing tolls and taxes that pay for roads are eliminated. Property taxes that pay for roads would be eliminated.
2. A Mobility Pricing charges vary by vehicle class, time, day and location of travel. This is done to eliminate recurrent congestion.
3. Mobility Pricing Charges accurately reflect the cost vehicles impose on road infrastructure, health and the environment.

You can check out the presentation here

The big conclusions I found were:

• Mobility Pricing would benefit all users (drivers, transit users, pedestrians, cyclists), but only if it is designed to reduce congestion.
• Both urban and suburban areas benefit.
• When congestion benefits are factored in, business and industry benefit as well.

[WBC]

Originally Posted by Aroundtheworld

I did my thesis on what a fair and efficient mobility pricing system would look like. It has the following basic tenets:

1. Existing tolls and taxes that pay for roads are eliminated. Property taxes that pay for roads would be eliminated.

I would be very, very surprised if that happens. In all likelihood all this is going to amount to is some sort of additional charge or levy on existing infrastructure. Then come next provincial election the opposition (whoever that is) will promise to free us from evil road pricing charges and out of control mayors - see photo radar...see tolling on Port Man...Then they will win the said election...rinse and repeat...

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by WBC

I would be very, very surprised if that happens. In all likelihood all this is going to amount to is some sort of additional charge or levy on existing infrastructure. Then come next provincial election the opposition (whoever that is) will promise to free us from evil road pricing charges and out of control mayors - see photo radar...see tolling on Port Man...Then they will win the said election...rinse and repeat...

Nah, Photo Radar is not coming back. Ever. It was a cash grab, and just made people who saw pulled-over vans cause accidents and distracted driving from rubbernecking.

Cash grabs always promise something on safety merits, and then someone decides to turn it into a business by raising the threshold until people start protesting.

That's the potential problem with mobility pricing. Since your commute is no longer a guaranteed a fixed cost, people will be wishing for tolls.

As for how to implement it. Tell ICBC to have mandatory canbus insurance tools plugged into the car that track GPS, heading, speed at the minimum, reduced insurance rates for those who get the full dashcam-integration.

For people who live outside Metro Vancouver, and outside of BC, use Plate scanning at the borders of Metro Vancouver to track when vehicles enter and leave, if a vehicle leaves the Fraser Valley via Hope, track it as "Exited East" or "Entered West" and stop/start the clock on Mobility pricing. If they cross the border southbound, enter northbound, same thing.

Then allow the WA DMV to collect on those Mobility costs should they decide to roll out their own system.

I would not be surprised if high end vehicles start coming with the mobility pricing data blackbox as part of the entertainment system. They like to show you how much fuel you are using, it wouldn't be a stretch to show you the mobility costs either.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by Aroundtheworld

I did my thesis on what a fair and efficient mobility pricing system would look like. It has the following basic tenets:

1. Existing tolls and taxes that pay for roads are eliminated. Property taxes that pay for roads would be eliminated.
2. A Mobility Pricing charges vary by vehicle class, time, day and location of travel. This is done to eliminate recurrent congestion.
3. Mobility Pricing Charges accurately reflect the cost vehicles impose on road infrastructure, health and the environment.

You can check out the presentation here

The big conclusions I found were:

• Mobility Pricing would benefit all users (drivers, transit users, pedestrians, cyclists), but only if it is designed to reduce congestion.
• Both urban and suburban areas benefit.
• When congestion benefits are factored in, business and industry benefit as well.

I went through your presentation, it makes quite a bit of sense. A few questions though, maybe other asked if so just tell me you answered and I'll read through the pages.

1. Was the benefit to businesses and industry contingent on the program being regional in nature versus just in, for example, Vancouver?

I'll give you an example, if I'm a delivery company outside Vancouver and I only have to pay mobility charges to deliver in Vancouver, would I not decide to either add a surcharge which could reduce my business, or not deliver to Vancouver, or eat it which means I lose out because I'm not getting benefits of reduced property tax being outside Vancouver? I understand it would affect each industry differently, but I could see quite a few where it would be negative. If I was a retail business in Vancouver though, it could also measurably reduce my potential customer base by reducing travel from outside the mobility area. Example, people outside Vancouver are less inclined to go into Vancouver to shop. Well at least by car. I'd imagine this affect is far less because your typical mom and pop shop relies on neighborhood traffic whereas big-boxes already don't really care about this because they are spread regionally.

Maybe it could still net benefit business.

2. Your presentation, like many I've seen, seem to only ever mention the reduction in traffic immediately following congestion pricing. I then see conclusions that it overall reduced traffic, but is that true long term in a city/region with increasing population?

I'll give you an example. When Air Care was put into place decades ago, it was touted as reducing pollution. We were told that pretty much until it was ultimately cancelled. The truth is, it didn't reduce pollution, instead if reduced the growth in pollution because there was a study released that showed pollution levels 15 years after had surpassed levels recorded when Air Care was put in place. So ultimately there was, 15 years later, as much pollution and more being added than before Air Care was put into place. The cause? The region doubled in size and more people just means more pollution.

Don't get me wrong, it was still good because it it was sizably less pollution regionally for the population we now had than had Air Care not existed.

Would that not be the case in some places also with mobility charges? Aka you can see numbers drop like 20% immediately. But in 10 years if your population doubles, you could very reasonably make up that gap and now have MORE traffic than you had regionally before mobility pricing. So would you not also need to continue with other programs like expanded transit, secondary modes of transportation, and heck even road expansion? Really what you'd be doing is slowing traffic increase and reducing gain per capita, so I'm still not saying it is bad.

Could just be that I'm being a pain with respect to using precise language when I see "traffic reduction" I wish instead it said "traffic increase reduction." but then again that would likely confuse people like "long shorts" or "short pants"...

If we put in mobility pricing 20 years ago, Metro Vancouver had 2 million people. Today we have about 2.6 million people. That's 600,000 more people. I have my doubts that the reduction numbers 20 years ago would be > that added by 600,000 more people to the region. It seems more logical to me that we'd have seen a marked decrease in congestion immediately after then a slower increase compared to having no mobility charges over time as population increased.

But maybe I'm wrong. I'm just wondering if it would be better to do it regionally and still employ other programs to reduce traffic including more walkable regional centers, improvements in transit backbone and services, and a move toward electric and autonomous cars which by themselves will reduce traffic only because humans are terrible drivers in general and a lot of traffic is caused just by terrible drivers having licenses and crashing.

[scottN]

Originally Posted by jhausner

I'll give you an example, if I'm a delivery company outside Vancouver and I only have to pay mobility charges to deliver in Vancouver, would I not decide to either add a surcharge which could reduce my business, or not deliver to Vancouver, or eat it which means I lose out because I'm not getting benefits of reduced property tax being outside Vancouver?

[Snip]

Presently there already is a big penalty for sending a delivery downtown - the time spend sitting in traffic. If you are making a commercial delivery, then the congestion fee ought to save you more in time from reduced congestion than the cost of the fee (otherwise it isn't working and ought to be scrapped entirely).

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by scottN

[Snip]

Presently there already is a big penalty for sending a delivery downtown - the time spend sitting in traffic. If you are making a commercial delivery, then the congestion fee ought to save you more in time from reduced congestion than the cost of the fee (otherwise it isn't working and ought to be scrapped entirely).

Or you could just elimiate the city-caused obstacles that cause congestion. Things like two lanes devoted to parking on many of downtown's major streets. There's plenty of offstreet parking but the city wants to have its cake and its meter money too.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by scottN

Presently there already is a big penalty for sending a delivery downtown - the time spend sitting in traffic.

I drive to work downtown everyday. I am never sitting in traffic. Go at the peak of rush hour and it’s more painful but even then it’s manageable. This perception that congestion has reached the point where this tax is necessary is delusional to me.

Have people never experienced real traffic, real congestion? Have they only driven in Vancouver?

[zahav]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

I drive to work downtown everyday. I am never sitting in traffic. Go at the peak of rush hour and it’s more painful but even then it’s manageable. This perception that congestion has reached the point where this tax is necessary is delusional to me.

Have people never experienced real traffic, real congestion? Have they only driven in Vancouver?

I agree, I live near Cambie and 16, so I rarely drive downtown. But the few times I do, it is never total gridlock. If anything the traffic is caused by way too many lights between 16th and the bridge, it's like perpetual intersections. But this mobility tax is really better for places like LA, not here

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by Trainguy

Any referendum on this would fail miserably like before. Stay tuned.....

The BC Liberals only did referendums when they wanted things to fail and didn't want to be blamed for it. It's not necessary.

Road pricing is definitely more fair than bridge tolls, but income should come from other means.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Pinion

Road pricing is definitely more fair than bridge tolls, but income should come from other means.

The carbon tax is proof that a government can successfully impose new fees with little controversy - by ensuring that the effort is revenue neutral. Now there's some discussion about just how revenue neutral the carbon tax really is, but its implementation shows that the public is willing to accept a different way of taxation as long as they believe that it isn't just a big cash grab by the government.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by Trainguy

“Mobility pricing is a key pillar of the Mayors’ Council’s 10-Year Vision that could fix Metro Vancouver’s unfair user pricing regime, significantly reduce congestion, and deliver fair and stable funding for our transit and transportation network,” said Gregor Robertson, Mayor of Vancouver and chair, Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation, in a release.

"During the election campaign, the Green Party came out in favour of the model to help cut traffic congestion and the NDP stated it would work with mayors to build a framework for a transportation plan, including mobility pricing."

Hold it a sec.... didn't the NDP campaign on No More Tolls? Maybe they are going to go with a vehicle levy instead. Any referendum on this would fail miserably like before. Stay tuned.....

Mobility pricing is to tolls like a scalpel is to a chainsaw. Mobility pricing, as Aroundtheworld said, is more fine-tuned to directly address congestion in different areas instead of just a blanket toll at certain locations.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

Mobility pricing is to tolls like a scalpel is to a chainsaw. Mobility pricing, as Aroundtheworld said, is more fine-tuned to directly address congestion in different areas instead of just a blanket toll at certain locations.

Naming is everything in a political battle, and "Mobility pricing" really doesn't cut it, IMHO. If the politicians were smart, they'd emphasize the benefits, low cost and sensible nature of a congestion pricing scheme by calling it something like "SpeedCents".

You heard it here first, folks!

[WBC]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Naming is everything in a political battle, and "Mobility pricing" really doesn't cut it, IMHO. If the politicians were smart, they'd emphasize the benefits, low cost and sensible nature of a congestion pricing scheme by calling it something like "SpeedCents".

You heard it here first, folks!

Cents are not going to do it...Are you really going to be bothered by 50c charge for driving downtown? $5 maybe...$10 for sure...

[dharper]

They say mobility pricing is to be more 'fair'. In theory it can be, if it is implemented properly. But why do I have the feeling that it will be applied in a lazy, unfair way. I live in Surrey and drive 15000km a year, with the vast majority of them East, outside of the Metro area. If they get lazy and use an odometer reading, and assume that I live in Surrey and drive to Downtown Vancouver everyday, then it will most certainly be unfair. But if they have someway of recording where I drive (in the Metro area), then it would be fair.
But like I said, they will probably get lazy, or should I say cheap, and assume that the majority of my driving is in the Metro area, instead of having some way to record it.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by dharper

They say mobility pricing is to be more 'fair'. In theory it can be, if it is implemented properly. But why do I have the feeling that it will be applied in a lazy, unfair way. I live in Surrey and drive 15000km a year, with the vast majority of them East, outside of the Metro area. If they get lazy and use an odometer reading, and assume that I live in Surrey and drive to Downtown Vancouver everyday, then it will most certainly be unfair. But if they have someway of recording where I drive (in the Metro area), then it would be fair.
But like I said, they will probably get lazy, or should I say cheap, and assume that the majority of my driving is in the Metro area, instead of having some way to record it.

How is it unfair that people drive more pay more? That's the definition of fair.

I paid a premium to do the right thing and live geographically close to downtown/work and the BC liberals fucked me over by focusing only on infrastructure in the eastern valley. Now my commute is as long as someone who lives in Surrey despite being 10 times closer.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by WBC

Cents are not going to do it...Are you really going to be bothered by 50c charge for driving downtown? $5 maybe...$10 for sure...

That's the whole point. Introduce the pricing as some small number of cents per km. Keeping the total cost below the radar it makes it easier to sell, and lets you promote the plan with a catchy, positive phrase like "SpeedCents".

[libtard]

Ridiculous fantasy thread should be locked

[cornholio]

This infringes on privacy rights on so many levels. I don't know why it is even being discussed. Do people really think this is viable or even smart? Lets not ignore the fact that just running this system would cost hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Ridiculous idea and shows a great deal of incompetence to even put this up for debate imo.

[Aroundtheworld]

Originally Posted by cornholio

This infringes on privacy rights on so many levels. I don't know why it is even being discussed. Do people really think this is viable or even smart? Lets not ignore the fact that just running this system would cost hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Ridiculous idea and shows a great deal of incompetence to even put this up for debate imo.

I agree that privacy is very important, but I think it would be foolish to outright reject the idea because there are some concerns. I worked for a startup years ago that developed the technology for this and I can tell you there are many, many ways to protect privacy. You can anonymize the data, you can process location data at source so nothing is transmitted. These are just a few examples of what can be done.

In terms of cost, the data transmission costs would be minuscule compared to what most phones do. There would be costs for the units and for enforcement, but if you add all these costs together they are far less than the cost of other tolling technologies. When you compare the cost with the benefits of such a system, the return becomes much clearer. Recurrent congestion costs the region about $1.6 B per year and you could effectively eliminate that with such a system. You could also use the same technology for automated parking where you don't have to fill a meter, dial a phone number and can by the minute.