Skip to main content

Road pricing plan for downtown Vancouver

User-pays blueprint part of Canadian city's effort to cut carbon pollution by 50% by 2030
By Ben Spencer December 2, 2020 Read time: 2 mins
Vancouver’s transport plan also includes reallocating road space and increasing walking and cycling (© Oleg Mayorov | Dreamstime.com)

Vancouver City Council in Canada has approved a five-year Climate Action Emergency Plan, which includes actions to reduce carbon pollution from transportation.

The plan has set a target to reduce Vancouver’s carbon pollution by 50% by 2030. 

The council says 39% of its emissions come from burning gasoline and diesel in vehicles.

Transport-related actions include creating a model to plan for transport pricing in the downtown Metro Core by 2025 to reduce congestion.

The plan also includes reallocating road space to more sustainable modes and increasing walking and cycling.

A separate action will expand residential on-street parking programmes citywide, with a carbon surcharge on new, higher priced, gas and diesel vehicles. 

The council is to conduct a public engagement and analysis before making a decision on the cost of the surcharge. 

Lon LaClaire, Vancouver's general manager of engineering services, says: “The actions outlined in the Climate Emergency Action Plan will support people in switching to walking, biking, and transit trips." 

"Introducing a user-pay model for roads promotes fairness and will allow us to invest those funds in more sustainable travel options.”

Canada is already taking steps to cut down on transport pollution.

Earlier this year, the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium entered into a partnership to establish research institutions dedicated to battery electric and fuel cell electric buses.
 

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • PTV to model Hamburg multimodal transportation system
    September 25, 2023
    German city aims to see 80% of all trips made via sustainable modes by 2030
  • Lime and Pedal Me to combat congestion
    February 10, 2021
    Firms want to replace around 15,000 vehicle miles in London over the next few months
  • Authorities switch on to all electric buses as costs tumble
    January 9, 2018
    Alan Dron looks at changes in bus propulsion as cities look to improve air quality and seek to reduce maintenance costs. Despite the ending of various incentives to adopt alternative fuels, the introduction of electric buses by US transit authorities is picking up speed as performance improves, costs drop and air quality considerations become increasingly significant. More US bus manufacturers are introducing zero-emission models and some recent contracts will see many more passengers getting their first
  • Why integrated traffic management needs a cohesive approach
    April 10, 2012
    Traffic control is increasingly being viewed as one essential element of a wider ‘system of systems’ – the smart city. Jason Barnes, Jon Masters and David Crawford report on latest ideas and efforts for making cities ‘smarter’ Virtually every element of the fabric and utilitarian operations that make urban areas tick can now be found somewhere in the mix that is the ‘smart city’ agenda. Ideas have expanded and projects pursued in different directions as the rhetoric on making cities ‘smarter’ has grown. App