Sharing The Road (& Costs)

OUR READERS WRITE

In 1969 I moved from Montreal to Georgetown where there was no public transit to Caledon to get to the Mayfield Rec Centre at Bramalea Road and Mayfield Road and no one ever thought of driving a bicycle along unlit Highway 7 or Mayfield Road – way too dangerous.

Fast forward to now where we see everything on the roads, electric scooters, electric bikes, mopeds, gas scooters, and so much more. So, now we are seeing bike lanes everywhere, which isn't a bad idea but it doesn't stop there; now many have pylons to keep them and cars apart.

All of this makes road maintenance as well as snow clearing a lot more difficult and perhaps very costly. So, who pays to use these roads?  Recently the Ontario Government stopped charging passenger vehicles for license stickers. Well, not exactly true. A year before the passenger vehicle charges stopped, I paid approximately $16,000. for the annual stickers for my commercial vehicles. After the passenger vehicle charges stopped, my bill for my commercial vehicles jumped to over $30,000. So, some of us are still paying to use and maintain the roads.

But what about all these other vehicles, scooters etc. that appear to be costing a lot more to maintain these same roads as they are now very divided? They are not licensed and no money collected to use these roads.

I am fine sharing the road, so long as the costs to maintain and repair them are also shared.

Brian Perras

Caledon