Mayor John Tory's pitch to have province take over Toronto highways shot down

The province won't be taking control of two major Toronto highways after Mayor John Tory raised the possibility as a cost-saving measure to help ease the city's budget woes, Ontario's transportation ministry says.

Speaking at a news conference at city hall on Wednesday, Tory complained the city has to foot the bill for maintaining the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway, pointing out that almost half of the drivers who use them live elsewhere and therefore don't pay taxes to the city.

"They're the only two highways, I think, in the province of their magnitude that are owned and operated and paid for by municipality," he said. 

"It is particularly, I'll call it aggravating, when almost a majority of the users of those very same two roads are people that don't pay a penny towards the cost of keeping them up."

According to the City of Toronto, annual maintenance costs for the two highways add up to $16 million, while $2.2 billion has been budgeted over the next 10 years for the rehabilitation of the Gardiner.

Those costs come as the city is facing a $703-million budget shortfall this year, according to the latest numbers, mostly as a result of the increased costs of the pandemic.

On top of that, a recently-passed housing bill that cut the fees developers pay to municipalities to fund infrastructure is expected to create another $230-million annual hole in the city's budget.

At Wednesday's news conference, Tory spoke about wanting to start a discussion with the province about how cities like Toronto need additional ways to raise money. When asked by a reporter whether that meant tolling the highways, he raised the possibility of uploading control.

"What might make it much easier than even discussing road tolls, which I don't think are on the table with this government, would be if they just took responsibility for those highways," he said. 

"These are the kinds of things we're going to have to explore."

Coun. Jennifer McKelvie, one of Tory's deputy mayors, said taking the cost of maintaining the highways off the city's balance sheet would help ease its financial difficulties.

"If the province were to take on these costs like they have for the 401 for example, or the 427, then it's another burden that could be lifted on us at the City of Toronto," McKelvie said.

Province says it won't upload highways or impose new tolls

But Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney's office shot down the request to upload the highways.

"Our government will not be uploading the DVP or Gardiner Expressway and will not be imposing any new tolls on any roads in Ontario," spokesperson Dakota Brasier wrote in an email to CBC Toronto.

Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute and a professor of geography and planning at the University of Toronto, said he isn't surprised the province isn't interested in taking over the highways.

"They'd be taking on something that has a huge cost associated with it and that someone else is paying for at the moment," he said.

Siemiatycki said uploading them to the province wouldn't solve the overall cost issue with the highways.

"Taxpayers at the moment are spending a huge amount of money to keep these ... aging facilities in a state of good repair," he said.

"Whether it's municipal taxpayers or provincial taxpayers, without road tolls on that facility, the general public is going to be paying for it one way or another."