Frank De Jong, a candidate for Toronto Ward 18 Council is calling for Land Value Tax to be used to fund the building of an electric rail link. He argues against a diesel rail link on grounds of increased air pollution and long-term costs and suggests that the higher up-front costs of an electric system can be met by using LVT to capture the increase in land values created by the infrastructure.
The rail link need not be financed by federal, provincial or city
taxes, but rather by the municipal government collection of the rise
in land values that the new infrastructure generates along the route,
especially around station stops (Land Value Taxation).
See De Jong’s election page here. Land Value Tax’s ability to fund public infrastructure has become more widely known recently. The extension of the Jubilee Line was a particularly noteworthy example of how public investment creates private benefit, transferring wealth from taxpayer to landowner as the new Tube line drove local land prices up.
