Toronto City Council’s plan to toll the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway is an historic achievement. But it doesn’t go far enough, is not bold enough and faces stiff and formidable obstacles that could dead-end the proposal.

In fact, the proposal would have more chance of survival if Mayor John Tory and city council stopped shielding Torontonians from this reality: the Toronto region will have to embrace tolls, vehicle registration taxes, higher property taxes and, if wise enough, some kind of municipal income tax to finance a growing city region.

This is the ugly, painful truth.

Tolls are a first step. But to isolate that form of funding is to expose it unnecessarily to being targeted and defeated by those who would sell us on a persistent falsehood which says: we can keep this enviable city region thriving without such investments.

The last mayor rode into city hall on a crazy train promising to derail the “gravy train,” save billions of dollars without cutting services and build subways using money from corporations and not city taxpayers.

The “gravy” barely filled a teaspoon, the savings were minimal while he cut services and raised fees, and we got a Scarborough subway extension — not with corporate funding, but financed through a property-tax levy on all citizens.

So here we are approaching 2017 with the perennial operating budget deficit of nearly $100 million, and a whopping $33 billion in approved projects that have no identified source of funding.

City staff gave councillors a menu of choices from selling off assets such as Toronto Hydro to seeking permission from the province to set up a municipal income tax. By one vote or the other, council rejected enough of the options as to make tolls the lightning rod.

Tory did the calculation and concluded this is as far as he could go to jump-start the initiative — an idea that’s been discussed and debated and contemplated but never commissioned.

But adoption of slow half-steps now will only make the pain more significant in a few years. Politicians are adept at deferring responsibilities to the future in order to avoid responsibility come election time. Citizens don’t have to countenance this strategy.

Half-steps present a second threat. They are easier to halt.

Only nine councillors voted against the tolling plan on Wednesday. But six or seven of the supporters are very lukewarm backers. It won’t take much pressure for them to fold. Then the opposition would be only seven or so votes away from reversing the decision — strong motivation to campaign in the 2018 municipal election on a “No Toll” platform.

Recall the fate of the $60 vehicle-registration tax passed under the David Miller administration. It fell without much of a whimper when Miller’s replacement arrived.

Tolling has always been toxic — the perfect wedge issue. That’s why the provincial NDP and Conservatives have come out against the tolls — a plan that needs provincial approval.

A better strategy to insulate the proposal against defeat might be adoption of a wide range of tax and funding initiatives, tolls being one. Include, for instance, a dedicated 5 per cent property tax for infrastructure. Opponents would then have to pick their poison — choosing one while rejecting others. This would provide a much better opportunity to educate Torontonians about the state of the city’s revenue shortfall. And the exercise would be sure to deliver some revenue tools. Instead, all opponents have to do now is rail against tolls without confronting the other viable options.

By itself, tolling delivers significant benefits. Tolls will discourage the casual driver who has alternate routes at his disposal; this creates more capacity on those two clogged thoroughfares.

Tolls may be the tipping point in motivating a commuter to choose transit over driving, resulting in more efficient use of road space.

Tolls encourage motorists to think twice about using the roadway for discretionary trips or plan their use to minimize the number of times they use it. This cuts down on emissions and helps the environment.

And tolls generate revenue — as much as $200 million a year with a spare-change charge of $2 a trip.

You won’t have to go far to hear the dis-benefits: A tax on 905ers; a hit on Etobicoke and Don Mills residents; a regressive tax that affects the poor disproportionately (One person’s spare change is another person’s dinner).

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If you think the city does not need this money, consider this. A $2 toll that stays on for three decades is expected to barely cover the costs of rehabilitating the eastern section of the Gardiner, a project trending $1 billion over the original $2.6 billion estimate. (Council has approved a new plan in hopes of cutting that billion-dollar increase.)

Another $30 billion worth of projects — from housing to transit and other essential capital needs — remain unfunded.

Royson James’ column appears weekly. Email: rjames@thestar.ca

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