The city budget being approved this week leaves a massive backlog of road and bridge repairs that will worsen by over $100 million this year alone and now totals twenty times that amount. Ironically, last year’s growth in tax assessment being celebrated by council will likely worsen that maintenance crisis, but at least a partial solution has been adopted by a very similar neighbouring municipality.
“One of the most significant infrastructure deficits for the city resides in the roads program,” reads the blunt warning of Hamilton city staff. “The program’s service level includes a rehabilitation and replacement backlog of approximately $2 billion. Annually, the city should be investing approximately $180 million on road and bridge capital improvement. In 2016, the city is spending approximately $75 million gross on the roads capital program ($90.9M less $15.9M growth).”
That “growth” portion doesn’t reduce the maintenance deficit on existing roads. And it promises to increase it in coming years to service the suburban expansion that dominates current development patterns. Nearly 90 percent of the assessment growth last year came from residential development, and fully three-quarters of that was on farmland in just four wards – Waterdown, Glanbrook, Upper Stoney Creek and Ancaster. In contrast, the combined growth in the five lower city wards where roads and pipes are already in place was less than one-fifth of the single rural ward that encompasses Winona, Binbrook and Mt Hope.
Waterloo Region, confronted by projections of fifty percent growth by 2031, has chosen an alternative path that replaces some road spending with larger investments in public transit. Their stated goal is to achieve “a more balanced transportation system” while preserving agricultural land and natural areas.
“If the Region continues to address growing congestion through road expansion only, we would need to expand the road network by about 25 per cent by 2031,” concludes Waterloo’s transportation master plan. “With about 40 percent of the land in the urban areas already being used for roads and parking, we cannot continue to consume this amount of land for transportation and develop sustainably.”
This has translated into a rapidly growing Waterloo transit system that has seen a 50 percent increase in riders since 2006. HSR growth in the same period barely achieved 5 percent. Waterloo increases taxes by $3.7 million a year for its transit expansion, while Hamilton council has resisted even minor additional funding.
This year, for example, the HSR sought $780,000 to cover the debt costs of purchasing already promised buses. It got the money, but only by agreeing to cover half by dipping into provincial gas tax reserves that are mainly used for operations and whose amount is shrinking because of Hamilton’s poor transit growth compared to other Ontario cities.
Waterloo’s additional annual transit tax allocation is almost exactly what Hamilton is adding every year to the levy to expand its entire capital budget that is overwhelmingly spent on roads. In other respects, the two municipalities have a lot of similarities.
Waterloo has 568,000 people, Hamilton has 525,000, and both are projected to grow significantly. Both are building an LRT, although Waterloo is covering the cost of one-third of its line while Ontario is paying for all of Hamilton’s. Both include a large rural area and each has struggling downtowns – both Kitchener and Cambridge in Waterloo Region – and an urban-suburban divide.
Provincial policies that also apply to Hamilton, such as The Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, are a major reason Waterloo gives for its decision to shrink its road budget in favour of transit. The provincial government is also sees transit as a way to avoid road spending.
Metrolinx calculates that “if the 45,000 GO commuters who arrive at Union Station during the busiest hour each morning travelled by car instead, we would require 48 new expressway lanes into the city.” GO Transit replaces 1.7 billion auto kilometres from GTA roads every year and the cost of putting those commuters on new roads.
“Effective transit services are essential in the development of compact employment centres and communities, which make our urban areas vibrant and reduce encroachment into the valuable natural and agricultural lands that surround us,” argues Metrolinx. “The continuing vitality of downtown Toronto is due in large part to GO Transit service to the central area.”
And the transit option for the vast majority of GO users is an option they choose over driving. The agency reports that “80 percent of train riders and 60 percent of bus riders choose GO even when they have a car available for their trip.”