Skip to content

Spacing

Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Recommended

7 comments

  1. The green licence plate is starting to turn into a very dumb idea – both in Ontario and in the US sex-offender states.

    The former swings the cost pendulum towards cars, however “green” and away from transit.

    For the latter – surely a bell around the neck and a requirement to shout “unclean, unclean” is surely around the corner.

  2. What I love about the green licence plate idea are the nebulous benefits with which it is associated. It seems unlikely that any mayor of Toronto, even one as supposedly green as David Miller, would make all “Green P’s” free to green plate motorists. There isn’t any support at the moment for loses of revenue. Especially when you realize that the plan isn’t sustainable. If the green plate program led to a real upsurge in the purchases of “eco-mobiles”, eventually their prevalence would make incentives expensive and you’d have to start charging them for parking again.

    Regardless of whether we think this results is 5, 10, or 20 years out, it represents an increasing loss of revenue for the city relative to the success of the program. As I said before, it doesn’t sound like something in which our cash-strapped city would get involved; and if the City of Toronto isn’t in on the plan, what good is it?

  3. True

    Unless the minimum in Ontario for the green plates is 100 mpg…

    but I agree – how many times must be people be punished for their crimes – especially when some of them got busted for being with their slightly-younger girlfriend or committed a crime like indecent exposure.

  4. here’s an idea: an incentive program for people who refrain from using motorised transport.

  5. They say registering your bike is a good idea, but they don’t say how many bikes the cops recover every year. Almost like the number might hurt their point…

    Full disclosure, I got my bike ripped off about a month ago and the police did jack. Not that there was much they could do.

  6. “here’s an idea: an incentive program for people who refrain from using motorised transport.”

    How about $10,000 a year?

    http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/jc/costofowning.htm

    Here’s the problem: Nobody in their right mind (i.e. excluding owners of look-at-me Hummers and sports cars, and kids still impressed with having a licence) would commute in a car IF THERE WAS ANOTHER PRACTICAL WAY to make the trip. It simply costs too much.

    So the fact that we have too many cars on the road is a direct result of the fact that we have too little public transit.

  7. Sue – while I see your point and most definitely agree that if we had better public transit there would be fewer cars on the road, you’ll never get EVERYONE to leave their car at home. Unfortunately over the past 60 years or so car ownership and massive surburbanization have led, not only to massive car dependence not unlike an addiction, but also to an ingrained sense of entitlement to privacy. People love to drive and they love to be away from people, like those on public transit. Many people realize the huge expense that comes with owning a car and bemoan it, but always say, “Well it’s better than taking transit.” Driving will have to become even more prohibitively expensive and inconvenient before people make that choice. Sad, but true.