Road Pricing and Public Acceptance Workshop

A big thanks to everyone who attended this year’s road pricing workshop on November 12, 2009! Almost 100 of us set out to drill deeper into public acceptance issues — first discussed at our 2008 Forum — and emerged with solid answers and some more questions. Based on the cutting-edge research and international case studies provided by our excellent speakers, we came up with a huge list of Ontario road pricing pros, cons and recommendations. This information will become the foundation of a communications strategy that will help elected officials, stakeholders and the general public better understand road pricing costs and benefits.

Here’s a smattering of what delegates told us about Transport Futures 2009:

“Discussion forums were great and in the right path to move the discussion forward.”
“Fantastic job especially in the face of lukewarm support. It was definitely worth the fare and my time.”
“I’ve been to a lot of these things and there are usually some boring or uninformative speakers. This time that was not the case.”
“The information provided exceeded what I expected to receive.”
“The opportunity to hear directly from world practitioners and experts was unique and valuable.”
“The workshops were an excellent idea. Very helpful!”
“This meeting explored a challenging topic and had plenty of audience interaction.”
“Very thorough and meticulously organized. Interesting!”
“You executed an event with a lot of complex moving pieces flawlessly and on time! You’ve really set the bar for future road pricing events.”
“Great job!”

With the unexpected help of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which issued a report on Toronto’s competiveness and the need for tolls, Transport Futures also became a focal point of discussion in the media. Here are a few of the articles, interviews, editorials and letters that resulted directly from the workshops: