There was lots of discussion at council Tuesday night about the overnight parking ban. I don’t really have much to say about it, other than reporting what happened. First, let’s hear what Linda Mosher has to say about it: : If you buy a car, don’t you think you’d secure a parking spot? But, that […]
News
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bigger rigs coming to a road near you
The province’s Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal department just announced that it’s letting a pair of companies drive truck trains on main highways. The “long combination vehicles” are basically two shipping containers pulled by one truck cab, the industrial version of those crazy tourists you see driving around with a car hitched onto the back of […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bayers Road widening: Chebucto Road redux
Former councillor Sheila Fougere, who represented the Connaught-Quinpool district, was an excellent work-a-day councillor who budged Halifax in many positive directions. But, alas, Fougere will probably best be remembered for her failure to stop the widening of Chebucto Road. That project provoked outrage in the community, pitted the suburbs against the peninsula and revealed that […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Is this a friend or foe of dogs?
I don’t know what exactly this vanity plate is trying to say. This roomy vehicle is a “canine’s lair”? Or this creepy black car belongs to a “canine slayer”? One thing’s for sure: the motor vehicle registration folks should offer a copy editing service.
Posted inNews + Opinion
Top secret skating rinks
A press release from Councillor Andrew Younger: Councillor Andrew Younger is calling on Halifax Regional Council and the Executive Management Team to move council’s discussion and all reports related to the multi-plex RFP results to the public forum on Tuesday instead of the lengthy in-camera meeting as currently scheduled. “The RFP was a public document […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Drunk tanks
In part this is bad headline writing: Drunk tank no place for students – group In part it’s a failure on the reporter’s part to put the issue in broader context. But mostly it’s the student activist’s narrow world view. Had he questioned the use of drunk tanks as a safe policing means, regardless of […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Crappy sewage plant
[Editor’s note: this story is one of five Coast articles selected as finalists for the 2010 Atlantic Journalism Awards. All five stories are collected here.] </big Last week, the brand new Halifax sewage plant—-the largest and most important component of the $330 million Halifax Solutions project—-crapped out. Evidently, a power outage led to some as […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Commonwealth Games West
The city of Vancouver is desperately trying to find $485 million to cover cost overruns and the loss of financing for the Olympic Village, and as a result the city faces a potential downgrade in its credit rating, which will cost taxpayers millions more in increased borrowing costs. Vancouver’s problems are nearly identical to the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Provincial government fails to meet environmental goals
The Nova Scotian government took an ambitious step when in April of 2007 the legislature unanimously adopted the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act. The act rightly connected environmental quality with economic success, and to that end outlined a series of 21 environmental goals that are to be achieved by specific deadlines over the next […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Inanity defined
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more perfect example of meaningless drivel than the nonsense offered up by the Chronicle-Herald business columnists. As I was reading this, I couldn’t immediately decide which was funniest—the reliance on Faith Popcorn as an expert, the completely un-ironic repetition of empty buzzwords or the cross-referencing of one […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Gloria McCluskey, councillor and heckler
Yea, I’m easily amused, but here’s an audio clip from last night’s council meeting. You’ll hear Tim Outhit complaining that council shouldn’t be spending so much time on this issue, this is what council gets criticized for, etc. Listen close and you’ll hear Gloria McCluskey responding with “then sit down!” and so forth. Adding, I […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
North Preston Trail
This is an excellent proposal. I don’t often get to praise public officials* for forward thinking— we’re all too familiar with streets being dug up for sewers (or whatever) and then repaved, only to be dug up again two weeks later for natural gas lines (or whatever). But here we see a significant cost savings […]