When it comes to transportation, we keep going in circles — building roadblocks while tearing down constructive ideas. After decades of dithering on subways we’re experts at doing nothing.

Now, there is a new premier in town — that town being the GTHA, or Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Can Kathleen Wynne break the GTHA’s political logjam, or will she be defeated by regional gridlock?

As a cabinet minister, Wynne largely held her tongue about road tolls and other ways to pay for roadbuilding and transit expansion, for fear of offending her tongue-tied political masters. Suddenly as premier, Wynne has the freedom to talk as much as she dares about transportation solutions.

What she still lacks is the power to make it happen on her own. Wynne heads a minority Liberal government that depends on opposition support to avoid defeat.

And neither the Tories nor the New Democrats are willing to talk seriously about road tolls, road pricing, or any special revenue stream to raise the $50 billion needed in coming years to dig ourselves out of a transportation hole. Despite a public clamour for action, the opposition persists in treating tolls as a taboo, and any other revenues as politically toxic.

Without new revenues, roadbuilding is a non-starter. And transit expansion reaches a dead end.

The political manoeuvring began this week with a report from the Toronto Region Board of Trade, the stolid voice of business across the GTA. Its members recognize that carping about gridlock (as all politicians do) is no longer enough.

The board warns that without new dedicated revenue streams to pay for roadbuilding and transit expansion, the region risks atrophying economically. In a measured report, the board called for a regional sales tax, gas tax, parking surtax, and limited tolls on express lanes to raise $2 billion a year.

Tory Leader Tim Hudak countered that if he won power, he would refuse any new revenues for transportation until he first eliminated the government gravy train. Of course, Rob Ford rode that empty slogan to power and it’s not getting us anywhere.

The NDP’s Andrea Horwath also scoffed at the report, claiming she’d find the money elsewhere. She insisted that ordinary drivers shouldn’t have to pay a penny more for new roads, because . . . fairness dictates the money should magically emerge from elsewhere — namely rich folks and rich corporations.

(Never mind that the NDP has been demanding for years that government boost revenues. The NDP should be viewing transportation infrastructure as an investment that not only pays future dividends but creates present-day jobs.)

Brace yourself for a bravura performance in the coming months from the unlikely Tea Party tag team of Hudak and Horwath. This dynamic duo of tax fighters and toll slayers, which last teamed up against the HST in the 2011 election, smells a winning issue for next time — even if we all end up stuck in traffic.

By rejecting new revenues, both parties laid down their lines in the sand: No new transit lines or highways for generations to come. It is shamelessly populist and intellectually dishonest. Pure political pandering.

The question is whether they are laying a fatal trap for the new premier, or whether they are trapping themselves in their own rhetoric. Public opinion polling suggests a shift in voter sentiment. People are willing to open their wallets if it cuts their commuting time, because time really is money.

Against that backdrop, various movers and shakers and thinkers are trying to shake us out of our collective traffic torpor. This week, it was the board of trade. Next month, CivicAction, an influential group of progressive activists, will weigh in.

A few weeks later, Metrolinx, the provincial transportation agency, will release its final report on how to pay for our transportation infrastructure. Its board of directors has been buffed up with the recent addition of former NDP cabinet minister Frances Lankin and Janet Ecker, a former Tory treasurer.

With all this blue-skying, are the stars in alignment at last?

The public is weary, business is worried and environmentalists are fearful of worsening pollution.

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Opinion leaders are trying to generate public support for the premier to act. Opposition leaders are trying to increase their own support.

There is no way to predict who will win. Just that we all lose if we do nothing.

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