EDITORIAL: For us the bridge tolls

Tolls on bridges and highways are something we'll have to get used to.

For more than 20 years we've grudgingly paid to use the Coquihalla Highway.

With the future twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and the building of the Golden Ears Bridge, we will also pay a toll.

And just last week TransLink announced it would immediately go ahead with the construction of a new Pattullo Bridge and it will also be user pay.

The latest decision has many grumbling. Commuters and local politicians say they will no longer have any choice if they want to cross the Fraser River for free. The nearest non-tolled span to communities like Burnaby and New Westminster is the Alex Fraser Bridge.

But the unfortunate reality is that our taxes aren't enough to pay for the construction costs of any of these bridges. If we want them built, we'll have to pay every time we cross.

To find someone to blame for all this, look back more than three decades when we first started down this course.

B.C., like any province in Canada, has an infrastructure deficit. It's the result of federal and provincial government spending failing to keep up with the needs of the last 30 to 40 years.

Successive federal governments have been happy to tax but reluctant to spend or transfer cash to provinces or cities, despite annual budget surpluses.

And now the problem is huge.

According to the B.C. Progress Board, Canada's infrastructure deficit could be as high as $125 billion.

So we find ourselves in the situation where aging infrastructure is either in need of costly repairs or replacement. The taxes we pay to the province and TransLink can't begin to keep up with all of this infrastructure spending—especially with the rising cost of healthcare eating away our provincial budget.

So it comes to this: we pay the toll or bridges don't get built. And it's obvious what our choice has to be, even though it's going to result in more dollars removed from our pocketbooks.