NOTE: This article has been edited from a previous version.

It’s the kind of tax that would have Toronto Mayor Rob Ford using words he normally reserves for 9-1-1 dispatchers.

But last month the Metro Vancouver Mayor’s Council approved a 2-cents-per-litre increase on the provincial gas tax.

It will take effect in April, helping to finance TransLink’s one-third share of a light rail extension called the Evergreen line, expected to carry 70,000 people a day in a city that is proving to be every bit as transit-hungry as Toronto.

A bigger gas tax is one of more than a dozen solutions being proposed for the Toronto region by groups such as the Toronto Board of Trade and the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance in support of Metrolinx’s Big Move. Acting on that provincial agency’s plan for transit improvements is the only way many civic leaders believe the Toronto area can escape crushing gridlock that could double trip times by 2031. Metrolinx has been given until 2013 to devise an investment strategy for financing nearly $40 billion in transportation improvements.

The issue will be in the public eye this week as transportation experts and the public consider potential solutions at Toronto Talks Mobility. Organized by the University of Toronto’s Cities Centre, the Pembina Institute, Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance, Councillor Joe Mihevc and others, it will gather ideas at a free Wednesday night public forum at City Hall and a full-day summit Thursday at the Wychwood Barns.

Although most GTA residents say they would support a downtown congestion charge, an Angus Reid poll for the Toronto Star showed they oppose a retail sales tax or tolls to help fund the public transit that would take more cars off the road.

It would be easy to dismiss Vancouver’s tax as some kooky West Coast invention. But many other jurisdictions, including Seattle and Orange County, Calif., are also taxing for transit.

The Orange County Transit Authority approved a half-cent retail sales tax in 1990. In 2006, a renewal of the tax until 2041 was approved by 70 per cent of voters, said OCTA spokesman Joel Zlotnick.

The $4 billion raised in 21 years has been used primarily for road improvements, with only about 25 per cent invested in transit, mostly rail. It did, however, help pay to start the Metrolink commuter rail service.

Voters support it based on a list of projects. They know where their tax dollars are going.

“That’s one of the real positives,” said Zlotnick.

Twelve counties in the sprawling Atlanta region are contemplating a penny sales tax to raise $6.7 billion for transit. Its passage is by no means certain.

“The anti-tax movement and recession don’t help,” said David Sjoquist, a tax expert at Georgia State University. But he’s a supporter.

“We have terrible congestion,” he said. “We desperately need funding for transportation and we need for more than just a small portion of the region to fund transit.”

How bad is it?

“The expressways are like parking lots,” said Sjoquist, citing 40-minute commutes that apparently rival the 80-minute round-trip Toronto commuters average.

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Three large counties have no transit service at all. There’s a bus system that serves two counties but, “there’s really no network of buses or light rail,” said Sjoquist.

“No one wants to increase property taxes, and you can’t generate much on local gas taxes because as soon as the rate differential gets very high people buy gas elsewhere — so it really falls to a sales tax,” he said.

The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce is also supporting the tax. Like the Toronto Board of Trade, it claims congestion is one of the city-region’s biggest impediments to economic prosperity.

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