Business owners oppose Metrolinx funding plan

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TORONTO, Ont. — The trucking industry is not alone in its criticism of Metrolinx’s Big Move plan to fund transit in the Toronto and Hamilton regions.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has released survey results that paint a picture of widespread dissatisfaction with the plan among business owners.

The Big Move would introduce numerous fees to raise $50 billion that would be used to cut down on traffic gridlock. However, the CFIB survey found that 84% of respondents want to see existing taxes and fees better used to fund these initiatives.

“Taxpayers aren’t buying the argument that hiking taxes is the only solution to reducing gridlock on our roads and highways,” said CFIB’s president, Dan Kelly. “While some on Bay Street might be perfectly fine with paying more, the majority of Ontarians who rely on Main Street for their livelihood want the Wynne government to send Metrolinx back to the drawing board.”

Survey respondents were not supportive of the increased fuel taxes (85% opposed) or commercial parking taxes (68% opposed) included in the plan.

“Small businesses have a strong interest in seeing the bottlenecks on the 401 or 403 removed,” said CFIB’s Ontario director, Plamen Petkov. “If people can’t move, goods and services can’t either. But, the message in these survey results is clear, let’s not fix one problem by swapping it for another – bringing the economy to a screeching halt.”

The full results can be found here.

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  • Is the CFIB penny-wise, pound-foolish? As the highway is used as a rolling warehouse, I hope the trucking industry is willing to add some fees for improvement to reduce delivery times. Otherwise, things will continue unchanged. That means that new transit projects won’t get started for 20 years. And that means existing or higher traffic volumes for 20-30 years.

  • We need to set tolls on roads from monday to friday 7.00 in the morning to 20.00 hours and on sat from 8.00 to 13.00 hrs for all trucks and cars and pay truck drivers by the hour and give a reduced price transit pass to any person who makes under $10,000 who single or a extra $5,000 for each extra person who lives in the same apartment To not build better roads and transit will cost the more. We need to encourage night time and weekend movement of large trucks in all cities in Canada. All large cities in Canada need to sit down with the CTA. and goverment to build truck parking and rest stops. The CTA needs to work with farmers that also own large trucks to have spots to park trucks in rural Canada for their members and in return allow those farmers to also park at CTA member operated lots.