In a multi-million dollar exercise in bait-and-switch, renewed plans for an expanded Bridge Terminal lack all the design aspects that won over community support last year. In early 2010, Metro Transit announced it wanted to expand the terminal by paving over six acres of land on the Dartmouth Common designated as the Wilderness Park. That […]
Tim Bousquet
Posted inNews + Opinion
Twenty-three downtown developments, and most won’t get built
The Dalhousie Planning and Design Centre has produced the above map of downtown, detailing 23 development projects—all proposed and approved, some built, some still awaiting construction, but most just a distant dream—which was in turn sent to me by Paul MacKinnon of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission. “Developers are buying and assembling land, hiring architects, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Proposed Quinpool development may create traffic problems with drive-thru
Louis Lawen’s Dexel Developments is moving forward with plans to build a new building at the corner of Quinpool Road and Beech Street. As sketched in an ad on Kijiji (no longer live), the building will consist of a 2,000 square-foot first floor, envisioned as a coffeeshop, and an equally sized second floor office space. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bicycle factory coming to Halifax
Bicycles will soon be manufactured in Halifax. Entrepreneur John Wesley Chisholm and partner Roger Nelson, who have been operating Halifax Cycle Gallery (6299 Quinpool Road, 407-4222) for about a year, are about to embark on their next enterprise, Halifax Bicycle Company. The pair plan to get the new factory up and running this summer, produce a few models for trade shows in the fall, and then be fully operational in 2012, making 1,000 bikes a year. Chisholm invited me over to the Cycle Gallery Friday; he’s pictured below with the prototype of what he dubs as the “Halifax city bike”:
Posted inNews + Opinion
Inaccessible Spring Garden
1. Corner of Birmingham Street and Spring Garden Road The curb cut is too narrow and leads the person in a chair out into traffic in order to cross Spring Garden Road. Ben Marston says the curb cuts are especially difficult in the winter. “The crews say they dig them out, but then the sidewalk […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Inaccessible Spring Garden
1. Corner of Birmingham Street and Spring Garden Road The curb cut is too narrow and leads the person in a chair out into traffic in order to cross Spring Garden Road. Ben Marston says the curb cuts are especially difficult in the winter. “The crews say they dig them out, but then the sidewalk […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
How to fix the city
“Any other minority group would not accept having a ‘not welcome’ sign on the door. I pay taxes, I shop and go out to dinner, so why am I not welcome in Halifax?” says Ben Marston, one of many wheelchair users who feels marginalized by the city’s dawdling to make this a more wheelchair-friendly place. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Keep the Common skating oval
Keep the oval. That message is coming through loud and clear from the 1,000-plus (some days over 2,000) people skating on the Common skating oval. The original plan was for the oval to be open to the public before and after the Canada Games in February, but then dismantled in March. There are six refrigeration […]
Posted inFood + Drink
Getting home New Year’s Eve
The importance of making transportation plans for New Year’s Eve is amped up a bit this year thanks to new legislation that allow a police officer to be a one-person judge and jury, and to suspend a driver’s licence for a week for, on the cop’s word alone, having a blood-alcohol content of 0.05—that is, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Off The Hook’s lobster delivery cancelled
Our favourite sustainable fishing operation, Off The Hook, has had to regrettably its planned delivery of lobster to the Farmers’ Market this Thursday. Says the group’s Facebook page: Unfortunately, continued rough weather along the Bay of Fundy means that none of our members have lobster to bring you as originally planned tomorrow. OTH suggests people […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Caribbean Twist: making a principled business decision profitable
Besides its truly excellent food, Caribbean Twist, the north end Jamaican restaurant, is probably best known for successfully negotiating a zoning hassle that threatened to close the business just a year after it opened. But the Twist also presents an interesting case study of a business owner dealing with personal ethical standards that come smack […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Saint Mary’s University cuts down trees to build a parking lot
[image-1] “When I talk to my students about sustainability at SMU, I tell them that compared to when I came here seven years ago, we’ve done wonders,” says Jeremy Lundholm, a biology instructor who is also part of Saint Mary’s University’s Environmental Studies Program. “They weren’t even recycling back then. Since then, they’re taking sustainability seriously—they’re putting money into it, they’ve switched the boilers from oil to natural gas, the student association is the first in Canada to have a sustainability program. I tell my students they should feel good about coming here. So this feels like a betrayal.” *This*