{"id":60061,"date":"2019-04-01T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=60061"},"modified":"2019-03-31T22:42:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T02:42:59","slug":"is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out."},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor: <\/strong>With congestion grinding cities down and road pricing hitting political buffers, is there a better route to a solution? Spacing is pleased to introduce our newest urban issues correspondent, Nicholas Sanderson. Nick<\/a> is an independent policy and communications consultant from the UK, currently working out of Toronto, specializing in transport and environment issues. Follow him on Twitter @Nicholas_I_S<\/a> This is a crosspost from a post he made on his Medium site<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Congestion has been in the news again. The Washington Post presents Arity\u2019s findings<\/a>, that Americans spend almost three-times more time commuting by car than they get in vacation. More time each year spent travelling to work than they get off. Congestion is a pain. The great inefficiency of automobility.<\/p>\n

A partial solution to the congestion problem favoured by economists is road pricing. We have ready-made examples at work in London<\/a>, Stockholm<\/a> and Singapore<\/a>. But road pricing is politically challenging such that the cities that have it are still a minority. Why?<\/p>\n

Simply put, it\u2019s a challenge for cities founded on democratic governance. When Ken Livingstone sought to bring one to London, it was billed as his great gamble<\/a>: a decongested nirvana or international embarrassment and electoral defeat. But even when it was first considered in 2000, over half (52 per cent) of journeys in London<\/a> were by public transport, walking or cycling. The majority of travelling Londoners were already set to benefit. And Livingstone must have taken confidence from this.<\/p>\n

Cities have also held referendums to decide. In Manchester, road-pricing proposals fell foul of plebiscite<\/a>. While in Stockholm citizens supported a charge. Crucially however, before putting the scheme to a popular vote, Stockholm trialled a congestion charge for six months<\/a>. Popular opinion changed dramatically and when the referendum arrived, citizens voted in favour. But even reaching a trial can be a challenge.<\/p>\n

More recently, in New York<\/a> and Toronto<\/a>, proposals were called off by higher political office. Getting a form of rationing through our democratic institutions\u200a\u2014\u200aparticularly fragmented city governance\u200a\u2014\u200ahas proved problematic.<\/p>\n

Indeed, one extreme view is that a solution cannot be delivered democratically (at least in America). Speaking to The Economist in 2003<\/a>, Anthony Downs, author of Stuck in Traffic<\/em> said, \u201cthis is a problem without a solution\u200a\u2014\u200aat least a solution the American people will accept\u00a0\u2026 Learn to enjoy being stuck in traffic as another leisure activity, because congestion is here to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Downs\u2019 position is strengthened when we consider that trust in our political institutions has declined. According to polls highlighted by the OECD<\/a>, trust in government sits at an average 43%. Between 2007 and 2015, trust in political parties decreased by an average two percentage points; while trust in parliaments decreased five percentage points between 2008 and 2014 in OECD\/EU countries. Why are these stats an issue?<\/p>\n

Government, political parties and parliaments are the bodies that would make the tough decisions needed to develop road pricing (decisions I\u2019ve written about before<\/a>). If we don\u2019t trust them, we won\u2019t trust the solutions they propose. In this environment, politicians might wish to stay clear of volatile policies and tough decisions.<\/p>\n

But with time running out to curb carbon emissions, urban populations rising<\/a>, and congestion with it<\/a>, is there a way for democrats (with a small \u2018d\u2019) to deliver road pricing?<\/p>\n

I<\/span> would argue there is. And it requires a bit of trust in people. People that members of the public see a bit of themselves in: no ulterior motive, no investments to shore up, no expenses to syphon off, no political career to progress.<\/p>\n

The wish list: long-form public deliberation, from a representative group, informed by experts with the right structure to incentivize proper engagement. I don\u2019t claim to have the perfect recipe. But at least we have examples to learn from: the Irish Constitutional Convention<\/a>, Melbourne\u2019s Peoples Panel<\/a>, multiple participatory budgeting initiatives at a local level and Scotland\u2019s 2015 Community Empowerment Act<\/a>, to name a few.<\/p>\n

In the transport world, my previous employer Sustrans have a long history of community co-design<\/a> on street and neighbourhood level schemes. Leaders of the cycling and walking-friendly transformation of one London borough saw it as critical to their success<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are abundant examples to learn from in order to get it right.<\/p>\n

As Claudia Chwalisz argues<\/a>, \u201cby engaging a broad cross-section of the population\u200a\u2014\u200arather than the loudest voices\u200a\u2014\u200aand giving the time and resources to consider the problem from all angles, public bodies encourage a consensual approach to decision-making and gain the legitimacy to act on hard choices.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t an alternative to political leadership, but an accessory to it\u200a\u2014\u200agiving decisions more transparency and legitimacy. Features sorely needed on such controversial topics as road pricing.<\/span> Ultimate decision making should, of course, rest with elected representatives. But opening up the development process to the public could help gain the legitimacy needed to act.<\/p>\n

Across the world, proposals to deal with the thorny issue of congestion so far have a low success rate. It\u2019s one of the dilemma\u2019s that might just benefit from being one of the issues we put a citizen\u2019s assembly to work on. Long-form deliberation is gaining traction around the world because when it comes to difficult policy-decisions, we\u2019re more likely to trust people like us. And trusting people might be a way to rebuild trust in our political institutions and put forward a workable solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor: With congestion grinding cities down and road pricing hitting political buffers, is there a better route to a solution? Spacing is pleased to introduce our newest urban issues correspondent, Nicholas Sanderson. Nick is an independent policy and communications consultant from the UK, currently working out of Toronto, specializing in transport and environment issues. FollowContinue reading “Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8398,"featured_media":59543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,32,9,8,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-streetscape","category-traffic","category-transit","category-urban-design"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out. - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out. - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Editor: With congestion grinding cities down and road pricing hitting political buffers, is there a better route to a solution? Spacing is pleased to introduce our newest urban issues correspondent, Nicholas Sanderson. Nick is an independent policy and communications consultant from the UK, currently working out of Toronto, specializing in transport and environment issues. FollowContinue reading "Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out."\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-01T12:00:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/streetcar-traffic-wylie-poon-600x400.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicholas Sanderson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nicholas Sanderson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/\",\"name\":\"Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out. - Spacing Toronto\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/streetcar-traffic-wylie-poon.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-01T12:00:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/d3eff7ccda49d365a8e7ef33e729418f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/streetcar-traffic-wylie-poon.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/streetcar-traffic-wylie-poon.jpg\",\"width\":2000,\"height\":1333,\"caption\":\"Toronto Streetcar in traffic by Wylie Poon\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out.\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Toronto\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/d3eff7ccda49d365a8e7ef33e729418f\",\"name\":\"Nicholas Sanderson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/008c72b1b1191b032341fdc18f538ae5?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/008c72b1b1191b032341fdc18f538ae5?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nicholas Sanderson\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/nicholassanderson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out. - Spacing Toronto","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out. - Spacing Toronto","og_description":"Editor: With congestion grinding cities down and road pricing hitting political buffers, is there a better route to a solution? Spacing is pleased to introduce our newest urban issues correspondent, Nicholas Sanderson. Nick is an independent policy and communications consultant from the UK, currently working out of Toronto, specializing in transport and environment issues. FollowContinue reading \"Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out.\"","og_url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/","og_site_name":"Spacing Toronto","article_published_time":"2019-04-01T12:00:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":400,"url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/streetcar-traffic-wylie-poon-600x400.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nicholas Sanderson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Spacing","twitter_site":"@Spacing","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nicholas Sanderson","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/","name":"Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out. - Spacing Toronto","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/streetcar-traffic-wylie-poon.jpg","datePublished":"2019-04-01T12:00:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/d3eff7ccda49d365a8e7ef33e729418f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/streetcar-traffic-wylie-poon.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/streetcar-traffic-wylie-poon.jpg","width":2000,"height":1333,"caption":"Toronto Streetcar in traffic by Wylie Poon"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2019\/04\/01\/is-it-time-for-canadian-cities-to-think-about-road-pricing-put-it-to-the-people-and-see\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is it time for Canadian cities to think about road pricing? Put it to the people and find out."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/","name":"Spacing Toronto","description":"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/d3eff7ccda49d365a8e7ef33e729418f","name":"Nicholas Sanderson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/008c72b1b1191b032341fdc18f538ae5?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/008c72b1b1191b032341fdc18f538ae5?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Nicholas Sanderson"},"url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/nicholassanderson\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60061"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60067,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60061\/revisions\/60067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}