Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the past decade or two, you know the Toronto region has a serious traffic problem. And if you just woke up, ask your kids and friends who live in Barrie, Pickering or Brampton and work in Mississauga, Markham or downtown.

We’ve heard repeatedly that Toronto now has the worst commuting times in North America. And that congestion is costing the region $6 billion a year in lost productivity. Such is the case whether we have a Conservative or Liberal or NDP government at Queen’s Park or Ottawa; and the conditions endure whether Mel Lastman, David Miller or Rob Ford is mayor.

Apparently, some of us know there is this agency called Metrolinx that is supposed to be planning solutions.

But few, it seems, know that Metrolinx has a transportation plan called The Big Move. (A recent poll revealed that one in 10 Toronto-area residents knows that fact, even though The Big Move was announced in 2008).

And if so few know about the Big Move, imagine how many know that the Big Move plan will cost $50 billion over 25 years.

Or that only 20 per cent of that money has been identified. And that by next June Metrolinx is supposed to tell the province — the government that created Metrolinx to look after Toronto region transit — how we’ll find the missing 80 per cent, amounting to $40 billion.

It gets worse.

The Big Move that nobody seems to know about is really a first-step action to maintain the status quo; to stop us short of gridlock. About 2.5 million people are coming to the GTA and Hamilton over the next 30 years. So, the Big Move won’t really move us. It’ll merely stop us from coming to a complete halt.

It gets worse. The planners have figured out the region needs about $2 billion a year in new funding to deliver the Big Move as envisioned now. But, already, they know what was thought of as $50 billion in 2008 will be $70 billion by the time they do the work. So, maybe, we really need $3 billion a year.

It gets worse. For, to actually get us moving, you’d have to add another billion dollars a year to the pot for other projects. See downtown relief line, for example.

So, to put a dent in our commuting times, the region needs about $4 billion a year — twice the amount our leaders talk about. And remember, this is an amount and a plan that only 10 per cent of us seem to know about.

And, what do you know? This amount doesn’t even address the operating and maintenance cost of such a buildout — amounting to more than $1.5 billion.

Speaking to Toronto’s executive committee Tuesday, citizen Joe Drew begged the Toronto mayor to level with the public and tell them we need to raise “multiple billions of dollars per year for many years.”

It gets worse. For the mayor did the exact opposite. He repeated the cruel hoax — one gobbled up by so many of us stuck in traffic every day: subways, subways, subways. For free. Delivered by the private sector.

On Wednesday, CivicAction — the coalition of civic-minded people and agencies across the GTA — added its voice to the call for proper funding of transit. But the campaign, “What would you do with 32?” — asking citizens to say how they would spend the time saved with the Big Move plan in place — is not bold enough.

As the politicians seek a place, each afraid of being caught in a wedge issue and branded a tax-and-spend politician, somebody must grab the electorate by the throat, tell them the awful truth, and offer the funding alternatives.

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Yes, efficiencies are needed, but they’re not enough. It’s tolls, property taxes, sales or gas tax, levies or fees. The alternative is the status quo. We take the medicine. Or we stall, chewing on the lies and fantasy we want to be told.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca

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