It's official: Vancouver City Council puts an end to the road tolls plan

A tolling station for Singapore's Electronic Road Pricing (ERP). (Dr David Sing/Shutterstock)

The final nail in the coffin has been hammered into the controversial plan to implement road tolls for the area spanning the downtown Vancouver peninsula and Central Broadway corridor.

In a vote late Tuesday afternoon, the ABC-led Vancouver City Council approved a member motion directing City staff to end all municipal-level planning work and expenditures directly and indirectly related to planning for transport pricing.

Killing the “road tax” was one of the key promises made by Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC party during the civic election campaign.

City Council voted along party lines, with six presiding ABC members voting in support. Three votes abstaining from the decision came from OneCity councillors Christine Boyle, and Green Party councillors Adriane Carr and Pete Fry. Sim and ABC councillor Rebecca Bligh were absent.

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This comes just over two years after City of Vancouver staff included road tolls for their Climate Action Emergency Plan (CEAP), which was approved by the previous makeup of City Council.

Just weeks later after the CEAP decision in late 2020, City Council approved a 2022 capital budget that set aside $1.5 million towards preliminary planning and studies for road tolls, including the cost of hiring dedicated City staff for transport pricing planning, and contracting transportation planning firms Mott Macdonald and KI Squared and public relations firm Lucent Quay.

Prior to this formal decision, City staff were on the path towards directing more resources towards planning transport pricing for implemention by 2025 or 2026. Although road tolls are within the jurisdiction of the province, City staff previously noted they would look at ways to implement transport pricing without the need to seek approval from the provincial government.

But before approving the motion by ABC councillors by Rebecca Bligh and Mike Klassen, City Council approved an amendment by Carr, who wanted to provide the exception of allowing City staff to work with TransLink and the provincial government on transport pricing on a regional basis — setting it apart from the previous strategy of just within Vancouver.

“There is a need to look at how we’re going to compensate with the decreasing revenues to TransLink that are currently supplied by the gas tax,” said Carr, noting the long-term impact on TransLink’s revenues from the transition to battery-electric vehicles.

“It could be a transport pricing charge possibilities might relate to mileage, a straight up vehicle charge, or something quite different than what people have feared, which would be entering the downtown core,” added Carr, based on what she heard from City staff on what was being explored. This possibility of pursuing a form of transport pricing without having to receive provincial permission was something former Mayor Kennedy Stewart denied during the civic election campaign.

Fry added: “We need to recognize that we are going to have to recognize the gas tax is not going to be there for us, and we have infrastructure needs and renewal needs that are going to land on everybody in Vancouver. We’re going to have to figure out ways to pay for it, and it could be property taxes or user fees.”

However, previous discussions on the City of Vancouver’s transport pricing scheme did not suggest the revenue generated would be redirected to TransLink for regional-level transportation investments at their own discretion. There was uncertainty over whether the municipal government would direct its transport pricing revenues towards its general revenues.

City staff’s preliminary estimate in 2020 pegged transport pricing’s one-time installation and technology costs in the form of road tolls within downtown Vancouver and Central Broadway at about $250 million, with the system generating between $50 million and $80 million annually in revenue once operational. The revenues from road tolls would go towards covering the one-time capital costs of the system, and then cover a significant portion of the $500-million costs of the overall CEAP.

During today’s deliberations, it was also noted by ABC councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung that a majority of the previous City Council voted against an amendment to pursue a regional transport pricing approach, instead of the City of Vancouver creating its own municipal system.

“I remember advocating that it made the most sense for this City Council to pursue a regional solution, and we proposed that was the direction we should go along with, as opposed to Vancouver going at it alone — a ‘Vancouver-only’ solution ‘made in Vancouver,'” said Kirby-Yung.

“That was not supported by the last City Council of the day, and the result was we spent $1.5 million and a whole bunch of time, and here we are talking about a regional solution. It reminds me of ridehailing when Vancouver wanted to go at it alone… people don’t artificially stay within one boundary.”

Supporters of road tolls believed the scheme would reduce vehicle traffic and emissions and improve road safety within Vancouver’s central areas, while opponents maintained it would add to the region’s already high living costs for residents, further impact businesses still recovering from the pandemic, and affect downtown’s ability to remain economically competitive.

The previous City Council’s decision to axe mandatory parking permits for all residential streets also eliminated another major revenue source for CEAP.

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