It appears Mayor John Tory may have some public support for his plan to toll the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.
A new Nanos survey, released Wednesday morning, was commissioned by the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships.
It found two thirds of Canadians would support road tolls over higher taxes or more public debt to pay for infrastructure.
"I think people have thought this through," Tory says. "They know we need the transit, they know we need to fix traffic, and they know it's not free."
He believes that has attracted people to the idea of road tolls over tax hikes.
Tory recognizes that not everyone is on board with the idea though. He says, "there are people clearly...who are not happy with tolls but they wouldn't be happy with property tax increases. They wouldn't be happy with anything."
The research also seems to suggest that Canadians like the idea of using private sector money to help pay for infrastructure but not giving up public sector control.
It found three in five support or somewhat support the federal government attracting private sector investors to play a bigger role in financing and managing projects. Still, almost two thirds oppose privatizing infrastructure assets.
Most of the people surveyed, 58%, don't think the government is spending enough on infrastructure and a total of 81% think governments are doing a very poor to average job of cost effectively building and maintaining it.
The mayor agrees that governments, including the city of Toronto, haven't done a good enough job of keeping up with infrastructure.
"Look at our transit. We have two lonely lines. It's like a two legged spider," Tory explains. "I have the plan to do more lines in the next 15 years and pay for it."