“Now the trick is that we gotta look like we don’t need this shit and they give us the shit for free.“ -Mike Peters
This is a line from one of my favorite movies, Swingers. Short video clip here. Mikey and Trent are in a Las Vegas casino trying to play it cool. They’re looking to make a scene at a table and Mikey throws out this gem of a line. He knows that people want what they can’t have and that confidence matters.
I was reminded of this line today after Amazon announced its HQ2 Request for Proposal (full RFP document here) and every city, from Chicago and Toronto to Philadelphia and Dallas, started swooning over the prospect of housing Amazon’s second headquarters in North America.
But to be clear, I do not think this is a bad idea. I actually think Amazon HQ2 is an incredible city building opportunity that would generate countless positive externalities for the selected city. I’m thrilled that Mayor John Tory will be personally “leading the charge” with respect to Toronto’s response.
Over $5 billion in construction and as many as 50,000 employees making on average over $100,000 per year. Amazon is looking for about 500,000 sf of space in phase 1 (2019) and up to 8,000,000 sf in total. Based on the RFP, they seem to be pegging their capital investment at somewhere around $600 per square foot.
If I’m being as objective as possible, I honestly believe that Toronto is the city to beat in his competition. I think it will come down to access to talent. Human capital is the lifeblood of a company and Trump’s immigration policies simply put U.S. cities at a disadvantage in this regard.
Of course, Toronto is also awesome. So that’s my prediction: Amazon HQ2, Toronto.
Road pricing is on the table in Toronto. (Somebody has to fund the expensive Gardiner Expressway East rebuild.) On March 11, 2016, the City issued a Request for Proposal for: “Options for Establishment of Toll Facilities on F.G. Gardiner Expressway/Don Valley Parkway.”
As a vocal supporter of road pricing, I am happy to see us headed in this direction. And I bet that today’s post will just be the beginning of my ruminations on this topic.
Because naturally, it raises a lot of questions:
Should the pricing be fixed or variable? Similar to how Uber’s surge pricing model is intended to ensure that there are always enough drivers on the road, should our road pricing model strive to eliminate traffic congestion by increasing the price of the road as demand rises beyond road capacity? I like the idea of a “congestion charge” rather than just a road toll. There’s something very efficient about it.
Who should pay? Should anyone and everyone who uses the road pay? Or should it just be be non-Toronto residents who aren’t already paying property taxes in the city? I would imagine that this latter scenario would be easier for Toronto politicians to get behind, since there will obviously be a segment of people who flat out don’t want road tolls/pricing. But if we stick with the principle that it’s a “congestion charge”, then everyone should pay. It doesn’t matter where you live when you are demand trying to exceed the available supply of road.
(I’m running a Twitter poll right now with this exact question. At the time of writing this post, “everyone should pay” is winning.)
Should electric vehicles be exempt from the road tolls or congestion charges in order to help accelerate our transition away from fossil fuels? With Tesla getting ready to announce its mass market Model 3 (price $35,000), I’ve been thinking lately that the car I currently own may very well be the last gasoline car I ever own.
It’s still early days for road pricing and our mayor doesn’t seem to be a fan. So who knows how far we’ll get with this RFP. But I for one hope that we find the courage to make the difficult decisions and that this new revenue stream is leveraged for the purpose of building more sustainable forms of urban transport in this city.
Let’s make a 50 year decision and not an election cycle decision.