407 ETR – F*** You

I have hated the 407 ETR for years. But this one time I caved, and it’s laughable how much I regret it now.

One of my earliest rants was on the ETR. And then a few years ago, maybe four or five, my buddy and I wanted to get home quick. A little hungover, tired…just get home to the couch. So we took the ETR, agreeing to split it. We jumped off the 401 and rode it to York-Durham. Cost ended up being 23 bucks give or take. My eyes popped out of my head. We had figured maybe 15 bucks. But we got over it. I resolved – again – never to use the shitty 407.

They don’t deserve my money via their price gouging.

But, fast forward four years (or however long) and it was the end of a camping trip. We saw on the GPS that traffic was bad in Toronto. We were hitting it at the wrong time. I figured, getting on at the QEW would probably push the cost up to $27 or more. Huuuuge ripoff, but we were exhausted. So we did it. Again – big mistake. Why won’t I learn?

The bill was higher than I expected. Of course it was. This is the 407, King Ripoff from the Isle of Scammers. But…

$65!

If the road was paved in gold and only allowed drivers with the name Darryl Dobbs to go on it, and it played a private music stream to my car of rock ‘n roll music – it’s not worth $65! Holy shit! Where do they get off? Looking at the rates, I see that they have it pretty high during weekdays, and of course the highest at rush hour. But man, nobody should be charged $65 to drive on a road. How did Ontario let this happen? Why on earth did we sell/lease this highway (for I believe until 2098 – so just 78 more years) to a private company? In the United States, you drop a couple of bucks in the bin every few miles. I don’t think you would reach $65 even if you drove the toll roads up and down three times!

Greed.

I’m done with it. This time I’m truly done with it. How do the 407 bigwigs sleep at night?