Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[ijmorlan]

It also makes the assumption people will just go "Oh, there's a toll, I guess I just won't go to work now." WTH?

If a toll were to be introduced, some traffic would find alternate times or routes. Some wouldn’t, for lots of reasons.

And either way, there would now be an income stream associated with the highway which would automatically scale with increased traffic, making the highway financially sustainable instead of requiring constant subsidies from the general operating budget.

The idea that there is no elasticity of demand is really the absurd one when it comes to road construction. It works both ways: people act as if tolls somehow won’t move traffic away, and also as if new lanes and roads won’t attract more traffic. Same for parking. Same for all this stuff, except transit, the free provision of which is apparently a non-starter.