British Columbians are split on whether to fund major infrastructure projects like the Port Mann Bridge with cost-sharing taxes or user-pay tolls, according to a new survey by Angus Reid Public Opinion.
Forty-seven per cent of respondents in the online poll, which surveyed 801 people from March 6-8, felt taxpayers should pay evenly for new bridges and infrastructure. Forty-one per cent said the projects should be funded by tolling instead.
Results were split regionally, with residents of Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island the most likely to support taxation at 49 and 51 per cent, respectively. Only 29 per cent of respondents from the north preferred the tax option, however, with 58 per cent in favour of tolls.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts said tolls, which are currently slated or under consideration for the new Pattullo, Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges, would be more palatable if they were more spread out evenly around Metro Vancouver.
"In an ideal world we don't want tolls… but if you're moving in that direction, it has to be fair and equitable," Watts said.
"It's also about bringing the price down, so people aren't paying $3 every time they cross because that's punitive, and it's punitive to people south of the Fraser."
The Sea-to-Sky Highway would make an ideal tolling candidate, Watts said, because of the size and cost of the project upgrade completed before the 2010 Winter Olympics.
The survey also found a clear divide across household incomes; 49 per cent of respondents living in homes earning more than $100,000 a year preferred tolls, as opposed to just 40 per cent of those in households earning less than $50,000.
Tolling was also favoured more by those who bike, walk or take public transit to work than those who drive. Fifty-one per cent of those who drive to work favoured taxes, as opposed to just 36 per cent of cyclists, walkers and transit users.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 per cent.
