The roads cost you$ 1000 per year

Photo courtesy
Pierre-Olivier Pineau, Professor at HEC Montreal

Anne Caroline Desplanques

Wednesday, 31 January 2018 01:00

UPDATE
Wednesday, 31 January 2018 01:00

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Salt, potholes, bridges, congestion, and all other costs related to roads cost 917,42 $ per year in each of Quebec, he is the owner of an auto or not, according to an economic analysis that will be unveiled Wednesday.

For vehicle owners, the bill jumps to 7577,35 $ per year and per person, because it adds the purchase of gasoline and the cost of ownership.

“It’s heavy, it’s squeezing the budgets of families,” says Philippe Cousineau-Morin, the president of Trajectory Québec, the organization that spearheaded the report in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation and the financial support of the ministry of Transport.

Overall, “road transport, excluding public transport, the transport of goods and the cost of parking, cost $ 43 to $ 51 billion per year in Québec, or the equivalent of 11% to 13% of GDP [gross domestic product],” says the analysis.

“It is an incredible amount that we spend for private vehicles that are parked in an average of 23 hours per day and who, in the hour that they operate, are in the congestion with three empty spaces around the driver,” comments Pierre-Olivier Pineau, HEC Montréal.

Pay at km

According to him, invest such sums on our roads is all the more inconsistent that Quebec wants to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are 40 % of the transport sector.

To Mr. Pineau, who sign the preface to the report, ” we are investing clearly in the problem rather than the solution “.

Between 1990 and 2015, while the province has reduced by 10 % in its GHG emissions, the road transport of people and goods has increased its emissions by 36 %.

To divert the households of the self, Mr. Cousineau-Morin recommends that the principle of user-payer. Install tags in the vehicles would, he said, to charge users mileage, while funding public transportation.

Mr. Pineau stresses that all Quebecers can’t go without a vehicle because the transit systems are not adequate to we can make this choice on a large scale “.

However, ” consumers have the choice not to pay 40 000 $ to buy an SUV that consumes more gas compared to a car half as expensive and consume less “, he says.