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2 - Orono Weekly Times, Wednesday, January 22, 2003 r *\ Subscriptions $29.91 + $2.09 GST = $32.00 per year. Publications Mail Registration No. 09301 • Agreement No. 40012366 Publishing 48 issues annually at the office of publication. 'We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) toward our mailing costs. " \. Orono Weekly Times 5310 Main Street, P.O. Box 209, Orono, Ontario LÔB 1M0 Email: oronotimes@speedline.ca • Phone/Fax 905-983-5301 Publisher/Editor Margaret Zwart The Orono Weekly Times welcomes letters to the editor on subjects of interest to our readers. Opinions expressed to the editor and articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily necessarily reflect the opinions of the Orono Weekly times. Letters must be signed and contain the address and phone number of the writer. Any letter considered unsuitable will not be acknowledged or returned. We reserve the right to edit for length, libel and slander. If your retail or classified ad appears for the first time, please check carefully. Notice of an error must be given before the next issue goes to print; The Orono Weekly Times will not be responsible for the loss or damage of such items. décidé whether the Region will build a new headquarters. The joint committees of Regional Works and Finance are presenting a proposal to build a new $68 million consolidated consolidated Regional Headquarters at their current site in Whitby at the corner of Rossland and Garden Streets. The Region has been renting space for a number of their departments for the past 30 years. According the the Finance Committee report, lease payments to accommodate the six departments outside the current headquarters will total approximately $24 million by 2005--the year the new headquarters headquarters building (if approved), will be ready for occupancy. The existing headquarters building is almost 40 years old and the committee states that capital costs of at least $5.5 million will be needed over the next ten years to upgrade it. In addition to consolidating all the Regional Departments under one roof, the Durham Region Police Services is anticipating anticipating the need for additional space in their present headquarters headquarters in Oshawa. The Police Services have indicated their headquarters will require a $10 million expansion to accommodate additional additional staff. This Department can also be accommodated in a new Regional administrative facility. The concept of a new consolidated headquarters has been debated at length by.various Regional Councils over the years. Debating the pros and cons of building a new consolidated consolidated building with all thé supporting reports and documentation documentation could continue for another 30 years, while the cost of construction increases and the money paid out to landlords on leasing agreements continues to mount. A regional headquarters would have made sense 30 years ago when the Region was born and it makes sense today. Get the shovel in the ground. Jill }|||igj|| 'S|@ mg il 111 «3* Ijllll \mw\ iiiiiiiili! ill jjltijipil iiilpiiiii i p lp lij <1 lillll Siiiii HI as ■te* !l -ill: HI HIM www.doli9han.com A.S I S6G it by Peter Jaw or ski The 407 costs (Part 1 of 2) Ever since the recent fee hike, Highway 407 has become the second most expensive toll highway in North America. The most expensive per kilometre traveled, traveled, by the way, is somewhere somewhere in Mexico. Folks who depend on the road system are understandably understandably up in arms about this. Some truckers, for instance, have vowed not to make use of the toll highway, regardless of 401 traffic, until the price starts coming down. I'm told that these particular particular truckers are rather resolute, and that they are sticking to their boycott. This particular fuss over the 407 brings up an interesting interesting qucstion-exactly how much do we pay for our roads per kilometre traveled? Does anybody, shy of professionals and policy experts, have any clue? For instance, how much would you say that à trip to Oshawa would cost for the road itself (not the gas, or cost of car maintenance and so on)? Does anybody give much thought to this sort of question? question? Of course not! Why would anyone think about that? We don't have to pay for it, so we don't worry about it. Right? Well, not quite. We do pay for these things, except we pay for them indirectly. When you buy gas you pay taxes that, technically, go towards paying for the roads and their maintenance. When you cut the government a cheque for their 'services' through taxes, the roads are included. So there are costs, we just don't know them up front. In fact, for most of us, we never really have a clue about road costs at all. Ever. As I see it, that's a bit of a problem. You see, indirect payment equals indirect incentives. incentives. And indirect incentives usually means poor communication communication of costs, and public behaviour that does not make the most of what we have. Public behaviour behaviour that is not mindful of how much things cost. We all lose under this sort of arrangement. When we are not directly responsible for the costs of our behaviour, we tend to exaggerate cost-causing cost-causing behaviour, and fail to think twice about whether or not we actually need to do, or have, this thing that costs a certain amount. The tragedy of the commons. Since none of us are financially financially responsible for the road system, at least not directly, we don't have any reason to not jump in our car and go. Gas costs and car maintenance are really the only things we have to think about. As much as environmentalists would like things to be different, indirect and cumulative costs like smog and excessive car usage act as disincentives to only the very committed. Most of us look to the bottom line. So it goes. Now imagine a world of only 407s for a moment. How many times would you take a trip to Toronto? Is it safe to say that you wouldn't go as frequently? Of course it is. You would give good thought to what alternatives arc available-say available-say taking a bus or GO Transit, or going to the Orono Country Cafe for all-day breakfast instead. Of course, there are good reasons to having our infrastructure infrastructure paid for indirectly. After all, roads reduce the costs of doing business across great distances, and are a public good in the sense that, in one substantial way or another, we each benefit from them. The question, however, is whether or not the benefits from this current arrangement are greater than the bènefits of an alternative arrangement similar to 407s all over the place. For my part, I'd like to see our highways converted to 407-style toll roads. Not only would one environmental agenda be secured-less overall overall car traffic-but another one would be as well. More money would go to the things that we actually prefer. Like all-day breakfast at the Cafe.