[W. K. Lis]

The Star article seems to concentrate on Toll Roads:

Congestion charges, also known as road tolls, could help make the Toronto-area economy more productive, says a new report on the city's competitiveness.

About 71 per cent of the region's population is dependent on the automobile. Not only is that costly for commuters, traffic tie-ups hurt the economy, says the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Traffic delays represent "a direct hit on productivity, especially in certain economic sectors dependent on rapid delivery (e.g. retail, logistics and food)," says the 213-page review of the region's economy released Monday during a global cities forum at the Toronto convention centre.

Economists in the past have estimated that traffic costs the GTA more than $2 billion in lost productivity.

"A congestion charge has proven to be an effective tool for reducing traffic congestion in a variety of metropolitan regions," the report says, suggesting tolls could be applied on the 400-series highways and other major arterial roads.

Mayor David Miller said he supports tolls being levied region-wide to raise money for expanding transit. But Metrolinx, the regional transit planning authority, has been wary about climbing on board.

"Metrolinx decided to look at its financing strategy in a couple more years, once it's started building ... and then look at financing the next wave," Miller said.

Tolling "will be something that has to be considered, as long as it's done on a regional basis. I think that's the way you have to look at that kind of issue, particularly because the congestion is often worse immediately outside Toronto than it is inside Toronto."

Between 1995 and 2005, the Toronto region posted lower growth in economic output and lagging labour productivity compared with other cities studied by the OECD.

While the city has renowned educational and research institutions, that has not translated into positive economic indicators such as patents awarded and growth in high-tech employment, the report said.

It calls on government to expand innovation initiatives such as the MaRS medical research centre.

Miller said investment in cities is vital to encourage innovation.

"There's tremendous research happening there, but the innovation doesn't often enough lead to job creation."

From the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development see this link for the article

Toronto is home to 40% of Canada’s business headquarters, the world’s seventh largest stock exchange, and it produces almost 20% of the national GDP.

Toronto is also home to some 5 million people, half of them immigrants, making it one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the OECD. By comparison, in New York and London, about 28% of residents are foreign-born. With more than 100 ethnic groups, Toronto’s large pool of language and cultural skills are a major asset and a factor boosting its competitiveness.

Despite these benefits, the region’s GDP per capita and GDP growth are lower than the Canadian average and its annual economic and labour growth are lower than average compared to other metropolitan regions in the OECD. A major manufacturing hub, with automotive, biomedical, computer/electronics and entertainment companies, Toronto is nonetheless facing strong competition and losing manufacturing jobs.

Releasing the Review in Toronto, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said that “Cities like Toronto are the drivers of local, regional and national growth. They are the hubs of higher education, finance, industry and innovation.But as they compete with each other to attract talent and investment, they must constantly upgrade the services they offer.â€

OECD’s new review of the Toronto region makes numerous recommendations to make the city more sustainably competitive:

• Innovate - Toronto could boost innovation by encouraging greater collaboration between the region’s industries, small businesses and universities and strengthening links between firms. Governments could build on and expand laudable initiatives like the MaRS Discovery District in downtown Toronto, where technological start-ups in life sciences are assisted with work space and services, allowing for inter-linkages between sectors.
• Employ skilled immigrants - To profit from the economic and employment opportunities offered by Toronto’s cultural diversity, initiatives such as bridging programmes and internships should be expanded. Reviewing the credentials of prospective immigrants before they arrive in Canada and a pan-Canadian framework for foreign qualification recognition would speed the employment process. To provide housing for new immigrants, regional agreements could define the share of low-cost housing to be included in new developments
• Improve transport infrastructure - Financial incentives to use public transit instead of cars, such as congestion charges, high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, local fuel taxes and parking taxes could be considered, as could more revenue sources for Metrolinx, the regional transportation agency. The federal government should work with municipal governments on predictable, long-term, infrastructure funding and evaluation with a view to contributing to the competitiveness of the Toronto region and the country as a whole.
• Green the region - Initiatives such as Toronto’s Mayor’s Tower Renewal project, which links social and environmental sustainability, should be expanded to include greening affordable housing and focussing on green jobs and industries. This would stimulate SMEs to develop alternative technologies and energy sources, allowing industry, transportation, etc to phase out carbon-based energy.
• Improve co-ordination and communications across all levels of government – Ontario could intensify strategic planning for the Toronto region’s economic development, social integration and environmental sustainability. Existing networks of municipalities and non-governmental stakeholders could be further developed as part of a provincial urban policy agenda which would start with the Toronto region and extend to other cities. The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, announced in August 2009, will encourage federal involvement in fostering a sustainable competitiveness agenda for the Toronto region.

See this link to read OECD Territorial Reviews: Toronto, Canada:

Key recommendations in the report:

• Boost innovation, by focusing on niches, university-firms linkages and cluster development and by phasing out subsidies [Chap. 2.1].
• Addressing obstacles to the acknowledgement of foreign skills, for example by bridging education programmes and internships [Chap. 2.2].
• Tackle transportation challenges by creating incentives for reducing car use, access to additional revenue sources, longer term funding commitments by federal government for investment [Chap. 2.3].
• Apply a green overlay to the Toronto region’s competitiveness agenda [Chap. 2.4].
• Intensify strategic planning at the level of the Toronto region [Chap. 3.2].

 

[Whoaccio]

I'm all in favor of privatizing and tolling highways to manage demand, and maybe some kind of congestion charge on the downtown core (this seems problematic, though).

As much as I think that would help, I'm pretty sure some additional road capacity will need to be added in the future to maintain adequate traffic flow. How much has the GTA spent on highways in the past decade? My best guess is 6b, which would imply something like 100$/year for each resident. There is no way we can ever improve congestion with that kind of spending. I'm confident that if we considered it, the private sector would be willing to invest in capacity improvements without government help, something we definitely need to look at.

We also need to improve suburban arterials. A better signaling system seems like an obvious enough candidate. In cases where major roads intersect in relatively empty areas, why not try to grade separate them? Not a full on parclo or anything, but maybe something like the interchange between Bayview & Lawrence or Mt. Pleasant around Bloor. That would also help public transit, either buses or LRT, avoid constantly idling at stoplights. On street parking should also be more or less banned. I can't think of a worse use of road space than parking, it effectively reduces some quite major roads to one lane each way, which is simply impractical. I don't know what the barriers are to building more parking lots and garages, but those need to be removed, now. Delivery trucks also need to be actively restricted from blocking major roadways.

More work also needs to be done on improving vehicle occupancy. For all the talk Metrolinx gives of "smart" this and "intelligent" that, I'm amazed this entire field has been ignored thusfar. There are so many ways to encourage this, too. We could stop banning for profit carpooling, offer tax incentives for car poolers, create more HOV facilities (I personally think all GTA highways should have facilities for HOVs, buses and cabs), offer some kind of carpooling software to coordinate, make it easier for workplaces or residential developments to offer private shuttle buses and so forth. Better road condition information to help drivers avoid congested routes would also help. IBM did a survey of commuting in the USA and the biggest demand was better information on road conditions. In the age of smartphones and GPS, this should be strait forward.

 

[Glen]

Are these reports explicitly trying to link productivity to public transportation? If so why would Madrid and Berlin be behind Toronto? IIRC they have much better PT systems.

 

[Roy G Biv]

Are these reports explicitly trying to link productivity to public transportation? If so why would Madrid and Berlin be behind Toronto? IIRC they have much better PT systems.

Well, you also need jobs to get to.

 

[afransen]

Are these reports explicitly trying to link productivity to public transportation? If so why would Madrid and Berlin be behind Toronto? IIRC they have much better PT systems.

Maybe you should read the damn thing.

 

[kettal]

In cases where major roads intersect in relatively empty areas, why not try to grade separate them? Not a full on parclo or anything, but maybe something like the interchange between Bayview & Lawrence or Mt. Pleasant around Bloor. That would also help public transit, either buses or LRT, avoid constantly idling at stoplights. On street parking should also be more or less banned. I can't think of a worse use of road space than parking, it effectively reduces some quite major roads to one lane each way, which is simply impractical. I don't know what the barriers are to building more parking lots and garages, but those need to be removed, now.

I couldn't disagree with you more. In my experience the worst congestion is on streets which have no on-street-parking. The streets lined with parking lots, where walking is unpleasant, (causation? possibly) have the worst traffic. Highway 7 gridlock is worse than anything within Toronto.

Ironic, isn't it?

 

[Glen]

Maybe you should read the damn thing.

If you pay for the damn thing, I will.

 

[afransen]

link

Summary is there. Full report published in January. You're welcome.

 

[benii]

no need. we are just slightly worse off than new york! it would be strange if we were doing better than them!

 

[Glen]

link

Summary is there. Full report published in January. You're welcome.

I am perplexed why you suggested that I read something that is not available. It sure looks like you didn't even read the summary before posting.

 

[afransen]

Sorry for the snark. I am tired of people misrepresenting what is said by an organization in order to then dismiss it. If you look at your comment, it's not at all clear that you had even read the summary. They did not link productivity exclusively to transit or transportation, but also innovation. It's right there in the first bullet in the first post.

 

[OttoSchloss]

End equalization and allow Toronto to keep the net loss of 4 billion it sends to the feds/ and or drastically reduce taxes with that windfall and the city will become more competitive.

But alas Canadians don't seem to have the stomach for that.

 

[afransen]

One thing thats hould help will be our greatly improved tax regime by 2013 or so. Our effective tax rate on new investment will go from ~50% to ~25% between changes made by the federal and provincial governments. This should spur new investment throughout the country.

 

[Whoaccio]

I couldn't disagree with you more. In my experience the worst congestion is on streets which have no on-street-parking. The streets lined with parking lots, where walking is unpleasant, (causation? possibly) have the worst traffic. Highway 7 gridlock is worse than anything within Toronto.

Ironic, isn't it?

No, no causation. On street parking simply has no effect on street vitality. The volume of on street parking spaces is so low that it could easily be accommodated in small lots (i.e. 20~30 spaces) tucked away into the urban fabric. I'm not talking about putting a 2,000 car parking lot every block along Dundas.

On the list, i don't think Toronto realistically could have competed with cities like Warsaw, Prague or Dublin for productivity growth for obvious reasons. I don't see why Sydney, SF or London would be tough targets though. There is no reason why we should under-perform both national averages and OECD averages.

I'm also not sure that equalization is a major drain on Toronto specifically. The GTA, maybe, but I don't see how Toronto would send that much away. Our median incomes aren't appreciably higher than national averages.

 

[Northern Light]

Of course, like any of us, I certainly favour a more 'productive' economy, both corporate and government.

But I also think it worth saying that these reports in the aggregate are generally not worth a damn.

The problems are endless.

First, you produce a statistic called productivity, which is essentially GNP divided by cost of input or by hours of work, depending on which you prefer.

In order to compare between nations, of course, you will need to use a common currency and/or the 'international dollar' in order to get anything vaguely apples to apples.

This immediately means that currency fluctuations wreak havoc with the end stat.

Assuming we weed that issue out by having a constant hours of production per unit stat. And we use only the internal currency value of a nation.....

You still get into a host of messy complications..... (is a Canadian cell plan more valuable, because it costs more?)

****

We then have to note productivity or competitiveness means whole host of different things, and there are various ways of calculating such as those hours lost to congestion.....

Which you have to place an imagined value on. What would you really have gained with a 10-minute faster commute that would show up in a productivity report?

Unless you work harder because of it, or put in 10min for free at the office, it costs nothing except the extra gas out of your pocket and the pollution it creates.

Weighting these things means the various surveys are extraordinarily dubious.

*********

We need to be competitive sure; but what do we mean by that?

I think that's what we have to answer first.

If what we mean is that retailers need to lower their cost of goods sold to what Walmart does, I would beg to differ.

As most of that is financed by lower wages and benefits, I think the unproductive model would be better.

Mind you, if every retailer understood inventory logistics as well as Walmart that would be a good productivity gain.

But if they don't, how do 'incent' that?

This issue is quite complex and the solutions are not easily written out on the back of a napkin!