As city hall grapples with the budget, it faces two major challenges. It must ensure it has the money to do what needs to be done. And it must keep a tax hike on this side of the financial twilight zone. One of the perennial challenges it faces is that it has a limited number of sources of revenue.

There is only so much that can be charged for city services and using utility rates to increase revenue is just taxation by a different route.

A continual irritant for those of us who actually live in Edmonton is the fact that others who do not live here get to use the infrastructure we pay for without having to contribute a dime for the pleasure of doing so. Every day, thousands of people who live in areas such as Sherwood Park, St. Albert and Leduc drive into our city, earn their living and return home without contributing to the maintenance of this city. It is about time that changed.

There has to be some way to use those thousands of vehicles as a revenue source. One way of doing so would be to have tolls on the major access points into the city. Every car, truck and bus that is not registered here should have to pay every time they use our roads. I am sure there would be all kinds of screaming and yelling from those who think we should give them a free ride. But since daily parking in this city runs into the hundreds of dollars a month, I have difficulty believing that an extra buck a day would actually create any kind of economic hardship.

Current technology would allow us to move beyond the throw-your-money-in-and-the-gate-will-go-up style of tollbooth. Transponders are used in a number of cities to create easy passage through tolls.

A transponder would also allow toll-gathering mechanisms to differentiate between a car that is registered here and one that is not. Given that you can buy a smart phone that will talk to you, there are probably lots of technological solutions to the challenges of charging a toll but keeping the traffic moving.

I am sure there a number of legal impediments to implementing tolls. But laws can be changed. It would be interesting to hear the argument against the city charging for the use of infrastructure that Edmontonians have bought and paid for.