Quote:
Originally Posted by FutureWickedCity
I'm glad that Mr Potvin is challenging the naysayers of this project. We should all be supporting this project which would be so beneficial to Ottawa-Gatineau. No doubt there will be significant hurdles to cross, but I doubt that any city has ever regretted building an extensive rail commuter network. And we taxpayers have little to lose if this is really a 100% private enterprise.
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Who are you kidding. What they're proposing is in fact a tax in the form of a "monthly fee":
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Trains will service each participating locality in exchange for a monthly fee based upon a simple formula that makes use of independent empirical data on the property market effects of that railway access. This “train stopping fee” is calculated as a proportion of the measured increase in realized property revenues (marginal increase in leases, rents) and capital gains (marginal increase in sales closed in the period).
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Smells like a tax, walks like a tax. What the consortium is asking for is the power of taxation. Sign on to the agreement and you are indentured to the provision of rail service whether it is profitable or not. It's great in the rosy scenario of exponential growth but if the service loses money, it just gets passed on to everyone in the network.
It's basically applying condominium principle to transit. We all know what happens when the condo needs a new roof or windows
and good luck trying to take your apartment out of the condominium agreement if you don't like how it's run.
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