“Uniacke Square faces the same threats that Africvillefaced,” says Jim Silver, recalling the African-Nova Scotiancommunity that was bulldozed into oblivion in 1962. The province built Uniacke Square in 1966 and many formerAfricville residents ended up in the public housing project. Silver, of the Urban and Inner-City Studies program at theUniversity of Winnipeg, was in town […]
Tim Bousquet
Posted inNews + Opinion
Lazy Leg
The provincial legislature convenes today (Thursday). Last spring the leg met for just 18 days, a brevity record it broke in the fall with a 16-day session. I held a series of off-the-record conversations with party insiders and analysts this week and the consensus seems to be that this session will be much the same. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Nothing going
Halifax’s celebrated planning initiative,called HRM by Design, will likely be approved by regional council in coming weeks. The plans call for a return to pedestrian-friendly streetscapes with sidewalk cafes and street trees and an emphasis on car-free transportation, including walking, bicycling and transit. But last week, future planning idealism met present-day budget politics and council […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Tall Buildings
“I know there are horrible things written about me on the internet,” Phil Pacey tells me as we talk in the Heritage Trust’s Barrington Street office. “I don’t read it.”As president of the trust, Pacey is in the unpopular position of opposing parts of the new HRM by Design process, which has been spun and […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
A transit proposal
My job over the next few years, I fear, is to document exactly how Nova Scotia refuses to take global warming seriously. It’s true that last year the legislature passed the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act, which mandates, as law, that we meet a greenhouse-gas emission reduction target of 10 percent below 1990 levels […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Nova Scotia Powerless
We should spend a little money nowin order to save a lot of money later, says David Wheeler, dean of Dalhousie’s schoolof management. Wheeler, who was hired to study Nova Scotia’s nascent energy efficiency program, agrees with a chorus of environmentalists, industrial leaders and politicians: The program should be run by an independent third party […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Atlantic Gateway fallacies
Caterpillar, Inc. announced last week that it was shifting its Halifax operations to Norfolk, Virginia. The Caterpillar loss follows last yearÂ’s departure of major shippers China Shipping and Maersk from Halifax. So now, weÂ’re seeing major infighting among major port figures.
 First, Merv Russell, the former chair of the Halifax Port Authority, publicly blasted leadership […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Secrecy: Fast Ferry
Halifax council supposedly uses its secret “in camera” meetings only for discussion of land sales, legal matters and personnel issues, but last Tuesday it met all day behind closed doors to discuss $13 million in federal funding for mass transit and voted to use the money on the Bedford fast ferry. 
 Several councillors cried […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Cars vs transit
A $1.1 billion six-lane bridge connecting south end Halifax to Woodside is just one in a series of radical changes to local transportation systems proposed in recent weeks. The proposals—including a fast ferry to Bedford, placing a highway in the south end rail cut and the introduction of rural bus service, among others—raise fundamental questions […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Tax Reform Committee mess
After heated debate over process, city council Tuesday voted to get the publicÂ’s input into the so-called “tax reform” initiative developed by the Tax Reform Committee. But itÂ’s an open question whether the public will understand the profoundly radical shift in public policy being proposed. It will affect everyone, from apartment dwellers up to the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
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Missed Metro Transit
When it comes to transit, Haligonians overwhelmingly support it—for somebody else.
 A GPI Atlantic transportation study released Wednesday shows that 90 percent of Halifax urbanites and suburbanites live within 500 metres of a bus stop, but only 12 percent actually ride the bus. Private vehicles travel three billion kilometres a year in Halifax—8,000 km per […]
