I’ve been shopping at the same grocery store for eight years now. It’s one of the major chains, nothing fancy, in west-end Toronto.
I shop frequently because it’s only a five-minute walk from my home, and anyway, I like grocery shopping.
The store was recently renovated. A wall of beer coolers was installed and I’ve heard rumours that self-service check-out machines will be installed, too.
The thing is, what I like most about the place are the cashiers. I’ve gotten to know them a little bit over the years. I know that one also works in IT and that another is originally from Chatham. (“Hey, buddy, did I ever tell you that Hawaiian pizza was invented in Chatham?”) I know that one’s sister works at a nearby store and that another briefly had a pet lizard they found lurking in the bananas.
I am happy to see them every time I’m there. Even if all we ever say to each other is “How do you pay?” or “Nope. No Air Miles,” I feel connected to them and I would miss them if they were gone. And if the rumours are true, they’re going.
Head office would probably say that it’s all for the benefit of the customers, that we’ll be able to check out more quickly and maybe prices will come down once they’re no longer paying the wages of so many cashiers—though they certainly wouldn’t be so direct about that.
The reality is that machines replace people because a machine will work for considerably less than the minimum wage, which means that already-wealthy shareholders can get an even bigger dividend and maybe spend more time in the Bahamas in winter, or buy an even bigger home.
What a machine won’t do, though, is make me smile because it kind of reminds me of Bela Lugosi. I will never feel the urge to tell a machine that it’s looking even prettier than usual. A machine will never say to me, “I like your t-shirt: I Bike TO. Cool.”
Some people believe greed is a good thing because it leads to innovation, which benefits everyone. Maybe, but this particular innovation will leave me poorer in spirit, and that’s worth a lot more to me than the remote prospect of quicker check-outs or lower prices. I hope the rumours aren’t true.
Several years will pass before the City can collect tolls from users of the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway; that’s assuming the province even gives the City permission to do so. Unless the City taps into other revenue sources in interim, that could mean several more years of budget cuts, like the 2.6% across-the-board cuts planned for 2017.
Currently, residents can purchase permits to park on residential streets when they do not have access to on-site parking where they live. While prices vary, more than 90% of the permits are sold for $15 per month. If the City increased the prices to something closer to the value of the goods and services “parking” actually represents, it could be an important source of revenue. And, unlike road tolls, the City could access the revenues quickly because neither new infrastructure nor provincial permission would be needed.
Photo: Martin Reis
In August, condo experts Urbanation reported that the average price of a new condo in the City of Toronto was about $7,100 per square metre. An on-street parking spot is approximately 13.75 square metres, so a person would have to purchase a residential parking permit for more than 500 years at the current price before they’d actually “bought” their spot.
Of course, condos and parking spots are not perfect equivalents, but it’s important to remember that a parking spot is not just a rectangle of asphalt. It is also the street lights overhead and the storm sewers underneath. It is snow plowing in winter, street sweeping in summer and parking enforcement year-round. It is a bundle of goods and services that costs the City a lot of money to provide.
In fact, according to the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute, the annualized costs of constructing and maintaining an on-street parking spot are about $1,341. Even then, that is in an area where land costs $1,200,000 per acre, whereas land costs several times more than that on a typical residential street in the west end, so the annualized costs of providing an on-street parking spot there are likely much more than $1,341. Yet the overwhelming majority of residential parking permit holders in Toronto currently pay less than $200 per year.
All residents benefit from street lighting, storm sewers, snow plowing and street sweeping, of course. That is why all residents pay property taxes to support these things, and why it would be unfair to expect residential parking permit fees to cover all of the related costs. But it is primarily motor vehicle owners that benefit from the parking spot itself because you can’t purchase a permit to store any other kind of private property on it.
If the City increased the price for permits to park on residential streets, it could have an impact on how people get around. If the price was increased to $141.50 per month, say, which is the current price of a Metropass, the appeal of transit, cycling, walking and ride-sharing would increase. Some residents might jettison their cars altogether and rely on taxis, Uber, AutoShare, Car to Go, Zip Car and rental agencies for the occasional trip the other modes can’t serve well. Society would benefit from reduced traffic congestion, reduced emissions and noise, and increased physical activity…
Those residents who really need to have a personal automobile, but are unwilling to pay a higher price for an on-street parking permit, could move to a part of the city where driveways are common and garages are big. As they move outward, they might be replaced by people who don’t own cars, perhaps even by people with low incomes who would benefit from living downtown where distances are shorter and transit, cycling and walking are more viable options.
Current permit holders would not be able to avoid increased fees by parking in their garages or parking pads instead of on the streets. “There are people who use their garages for storage,” admits Vince Loffredi, Supervisor of the City’s Residential Parking Permit Program, “But there aren’t that many because most people prefer to park on their own property rather than on the street.” They would park on-site if they could, which is why most would continue to pay the fees even if they were increased.
Fees from residential parking permits would be no substitute for road tolls, but they could be an important part of a holistic solution to the City’s financial challenges. If the City increased the prices, the program would bring in many times more than the $13.5 million it does at present, money that could be used to expand transit, improve social housing and address other pressing needs instead of cutting back.
A motion requesting a staff report on licensing bicycles is on the agenda of the September 27 meeting of the City’s Public Works and Infrastructure Committee (PWIC). The motion was referred to the PWIC after being introduced at a Council meeting by Councillor Stephen Holyday (Ward 3 Etobicoke Centre) in July.
The City has considered and rejected the idea of licensing cyclists several times. There is even a page on the City’s website recounting this history, including the reasons why previous proposals were rejected. However, this initiative, unlike previous ones, is about licensing bicycles, not bicyclists.
In conversation, Councillor Holyday explained that his motion was motivated primarily by a desire to gather better data for planning purposes. The Councillor expressed concern that projections in the City’s cycling plan were based on Census data. He wants to know where people are actually riding and seems skeptical of the short-term counts of cyclists currently used in planning.
The Councillor envisions a licensing program in which Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags would be affixed to licensed bicycles. He believes this would result in the collection of higher-quality data, which would result in better planning.
RFID tags would be seen as an invasion of privacy by some. Currently, when cars, trucks and bicycles are counted, they are counted anonymously. Councillor Holyday sees each RFID tag being associated with a specific bicycle, however, which would mean that bicycles would thereafter be identified as well as counted. Unless motor vehicles, pedestrians and other road users were also required to carry RFID tags, one would be able to make the case that bicycles were being singled-out.
And RFID may not even be an effective way to gather useful data. GPS-based smartphone apps, like the Toronto Cycling App, can track a user’s route turn-for-turn; however an RFID reader can only count and identify tagged items when they are nearby. The Councillor opposes tagging children’s bicycles, so trips on children’s bikes wouldn’t be counted, nor would trips made on untagged bicycles from other cities. On the other hand, the pneumatic tubes currently being used to count vehicles are able to count all of these trips.
Concerns about RFID aside, Councillor Holyday’s proposal may be based on a false premise: that short-term count data is inaccurate. Data from short-term counts are usually extrapolated based on 24/7 counts done in comparable locations elsewhere. In this way, projections are made to reflect the fact that the number of cyclists will be lower in cold months than in warm ones, for example. Experts insist the errors are small if the count is done right.
Regardless, counts of where people currently cycle aren’t enough when planning where to make improvements in the future. Planners also use neighbourhood-level data about population density from the Census, and trip length data from other sources, to estimate potential interest in cycling. Where data indicates an area with a large population taking a lot of short trips, infrastructure improvements may increase the number of those trips made by bicycle.
In addition to improving data collection, Councillor Holyday’s proposed bicycle licensing program is intended to generate revenue for infrastructure maintenance and expansion.
“Even though we all pay taxes, and we all contribute,” the Councillor argued, a bike lane is “exclusively enjoyed by cyclists,” so it is not unreasonable to expect cyclists to pay some of the costs of providing it. When asked if he’d support charging tolls on motorists using the Gardiner and DVP, which are for the exclusive use of motor vehicles, however, the Councillor said he would not. He does not support any new revenue tools, bicycle licensing fees being the one apparent exception.
Finally, while the Councillor said his proposal is not about changing behaviour, he expressed hope that licensing bicycles would result in improved compliance with traffic laws. He suggested that if cyclists purchased their licenses through partner organizations, such as cycling clubs, members would have a chance to talk to them about safe cycling and press literature into their palms. Comprehensive, Ontario-centric resources are already available free-of-charge online.
On Tuesday the PWIC can approve the motion and direct staff to prepare a report on the potential of a bicycle licensing system, it can refer the motion back to the full Council for further debate, or it can defer it altogether.
