TORONTO, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has launched a petition calling on Premier Wynne and Transportation Minister Steve Del Duca to halt their plans to create high occupancy toll lanes in Ontario. The plan lacks detail on the exact costs for commuters, but the pilot project will start with a corridor between Oakville and Burlington.

“Ontarians rely on their cars to get to work every day, and have paid high gasoline taxes for years to build the infrastructure they drive on,” said CTF Ontario Director Christine Van Geyn. “It’s unfair for Ontarians to pay for twice for this infrastructure.”

Documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation revealed that the cost of the temporary High Occupancy Toll lanes during the Pan Am Games was $3.2 million dollars.

“Minister Del Duca said he would apply lessons from the Pan Am Games when designing new High Occupancy Toll lanes,” continued Van Geyn. “The lesson from those lanes was that they were an enormous waste of $3.2 million in taxpayer money and caused gridlock traffic.” (Photo Geoffrey Gilmour Taylor/Flickr)

The Oakville-Burlington pilot project will be permit based, and will not involve converting general purpose lanes to toll lanes. The pilot project will only convert existing High Occupancy Vehicle lanes to toll lanes for single drivers. The government will issue 1,000 permits for drivers to use the pilot lane.

“The purpose of a pilot project is to test real world conditions. But Minister Del Duca chose to put the pilot project on a stretch of highway between two of the highest income suburban cities in the province,” continued Van Geyn. “This pilot project is clearly a plan to squeeze money out of those most likely to pay, so they can then claim the project as a success and then move it to other jurisdictions where commuters are less able to pay a toll and where there are no existing HOV lanes to convert.”

The CTF’s petition opposing the Ontario government forcing drivers to pay twice for their roads can be found here: https://www.taxpayer.com/resource-centre/petitions/petition?tpContentId=114