What a backassward city we live in. First they were taking peoples land away from them to widen roads to accommodate for higher volumes of traffic coming into the city. And now I hear that the bridge commission is thinking about raising tolls during rush hours, to deter people from being so dependant on their vehicles. Does this sound like shit to anyone else? To me it sounds like just another money grab. Rape us of $$ any which way they can,and make it sound like they are doing us a favor in the process. City officials have to get their heads out of their asses. But hey that’s just my opinion.
—Leave the toll alone damn it !
This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2009.
“City officials have to get their heads out of their asses. But hey that’s just my opinion.”
I’ll second that.
But I won’t hold my breath.
Well it’s a combination of the ” leader ” that pink eyed Stuttttring, stammmmmmmering Mayor that we have that is part of the Problem. On the 1 hand we have the city budgeting less for snow removal than it actually costs, like it’s wishful thinking, and on the other hand it reallly does cost more to plow your shit if you low ball it. That in a nutshell is how the city thinks, low ball it and” hope ” we are right. Guess what, your wrong,
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I’m in the unusual position of defending “city” officials. First, yes, half the time the snow removal budget is not enough, and the other time it’s too much. Now why could that be, hmmmm? The city averages out five years back, and budgets accordingly for snow removal, which seems a reasonable route to take. It doesn’t much matter, really, tho, because there are reserve funds to cover such under-budgeting when we have a heavy snow year; we simply lose projected interest, which this year might actually be a good thing (none of those reserve funds are making money…). Now you could argue whether or not the effort expended on snow removal is enough per snow event, and I’d be right there with you.
On the bridge front, the bridge commission is a provincial crown corporation, not a city operation (although the city has a few appointments to the board). Regardless, most cities wrap bridge and highway operations into larger transportation authorities that also run the transit systems, which makes a lot of sense. And yes, in most big cities the bridge tolls subsidize transit, because it’s cheaper to put more people on buses and ferries than to build new bridges. So, you can insist on not subsidizing transit and see tolls go up a dollar or two to pay for new bridges for all the cars, or you can pay 50 cents or so to subsidize transit, delaying the need for new bridges. Your choice.
And getting other people to take the bus or walk or ride bikes decreases the car traffic and road delays for you.
Money grab, plain and simple. $70,000,000 to resurface? Surely they jest. I believe the cost for a km of a highway from survey to pavement laid is somewhere in the area of 1-2 million.
I think it’s a great idea to make the bridge toll higher during rush hour. If the toll is $2, then it makes it far cheaper to take the bus. However, if this happens, they need to be prepared to have more busses running so that the people who switch aren’t getting screwed over by shitty bus service, which would tempt them to switch back.
The back ups are at the toll booths and the off ramps not the bridge spans themselves.
Money grab.
People are stupid: so would tolls placed at every entrance of the peninsula be good idea as well?
Using mass transit is socially and environmentally responsible. We all know this. Unfortunately, very few people will do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do. And so we need carrot-and-stick measures like tax breaks and congestion charges to get people out of their cars and onto mass transit. The government offered us a little carrot a few years ago in the form of a tax deduction for bus passes. This rush hour toll is clearly a type of congestion charge. I say bring on the stick.
Tim— did you just defend the city? Man, you actually make a good point though. With higher tolls, subsidize transit more and get some of these people off of here that complain the MT doesn’t go out into the sticks often enough or there’s no night service… blah blah blah.
Toll roads are very unCanadian. We pay more taxes here than individuals do across the whole planet yet these people feel it their right to dig into Canadian pockets to finance the development of crown land (yes, that’s YOUR land) on a per-use basis… yes, that means bridges and yes, it’s total crap for the tax payer.
As for deterring people from using their cars they do a fine job in the HRM. Tax them to drive it on a particular road, tow them if they park overnight, tax the fuel, tax the revenues from yearly safety inspections, tax on tires, tax on used cars (which have been taxed before), tax on maintenance, no free parking anywhere… tax tax tax and STILL we have a substandard mass transit system.
The HRM could do little more to deter people from living here let alone driving here. What a fuckin’ hole.
Obviously our transit system has a long, long way to go. The five-year plan adopted this year by council is reasonably aggressive compared to recent history, and addresses the most obvious and pressing shortcomings, but it’s nowhere near what it needs to be.
Basically, it needs money. Raising bridge tolls and imposing congestion charges is a good way to raise that money. Devil in details, and all that, of course.
So what’s the deal with widening roads if financing mass transit is at the heart of increased toll bridges? Give me a break. They think we’re not paying attention.
I like the congestion charge idea. It would work in the downtown core, and I actually feel it would deter people from driving in the morning rush, and making more people use public transit to the downtown core. That makes it doubly effective, reducing congestion in the downtown area and freeing up traffic flow.
Kay— how wrong you are. Toll roads are very Canadian now especially since the privatization of the 407 outside of Toronto. Not to mention too the Cobequid pass, etc. In fact, there are many toll roads across Canada. Taxes and the money generated from said taxes are required to make the city go ’round. I’ll gladly support more taxes for people who are too stupid to take the bus and leave the car in the driveway. I do it all the time. Not only do I save on fuel costs and pollute less, what I save in insurance costs more than pays for bus passes for the year (I paid 1300 for Casual Driver status last year, where my premium for liability and collision for day to day would have been 3000). Don’t like our taxation system, live in another city, and you’ll find some of the stuff pretty fair.
I’m not sure I understand your point, kay. You’ll find invariably that the people arguing against road widening are the very same people advocating for transit. And the people in favour of road-widening always say transit won’t cut it.
I think you’re assuming that the bureaucrats and politicians are a monolithic one. They’re not. There are all sorts of arguments going on, all sorts of compromises, contradictory actions, etc, all the time. We the public should weigh in, of course, and try to bring about the most sane policies.
I Think it’s funny people think that raising the toll on the bridge during rush hours is going to stop people from driving to and from work. I suppose you believe that a tax on junk food would stop people from eating at Macdonalds too huh ?Or maybe people would quit drinking and smoking when they raised the prices of those items as well.We saw how well that worked didn’t we. Whoever is making these decisions isn’t looking out for us, just ways to make more money off of us. Unless they raise the toll to some crazy amount like 5 bucks or something, people are still going to drive as usual. In the end thats what they are hoping for really so they can make more money.
My point is the CITY wants to widen streets while the CITY wants you to use transit. Hello? Some consistency from our ‘leaders’ in the ‘mission’ would a very good thing, don’t you think? Making something so expensive that we can’t use it anymore leads to increased crime rates, not reduction of use! Just go ask any cop looking for illegal tobacco.
Fever, “people who are too stupid to take the bus”… can you close your mind any tighter? I work hard to have convenience in my life. I am Canadian. This is my right. This sort of taxation goes against this principal. They should call it luxury tax since it seems my right to get from A to B comfortably and safely seems to be over the top when a shitty transit system full of smelly assholes and cranked MP3 players is sometimes available to me. Holy cow, man! Why should I have to pay to go onto roads already financed by my tax dollars?
The 407 ETR is not popular nor is any other toll road in this country. Maybe we should all take out our calculators and determine exactly how hard we work for the government.
Toll roads are to Canada as private health clinics are to Canada. UNWANTED and very American (toll roads, private health care, etc)
I do think that they should consider having toll stations for this congestion charge in other parts of the city, otherwise its only a detterent if you’re coming from Dartmouth to Halifax, or vis versa. We need to deter people from using their cars during rush hour if they have busses available to them. So the major highways into the city should also have a toll during rush hour. Keep the MacPass thing going and you won’t even have more traffic. Make sure there are plenty of Park N Rides and bus terminals just before you hit these tolls, and maybe it will make a difference.
I live in Dartmouth, and cross the bridge at least twice a day. If I take the car (rarely) that’s one more car backing up traffic. If I take the bus or ferry, not.
It’s not so hard to understand, but still people don’t hear it. Making it easier for *other people* to take transit makes your car commute easier. You can pay lots and lots of money for more bridges and roads so all of us drive every day, or you pay not so much so some of us want to take the bus and you don’t have to pay for more bridges and roads….
A congestion charge such as a rush hour toll won’t get everyone, or even most people, to stop driving to and from work, Kirbul. In fact, it would be disastrous if that happened. The transit system isn’t equipped to deal with a sudden massive increase in demand. But a congestion charge will have an impact. For some people, the extra two or three dollars a day will be enough to make them consider transit, or at the very least, carpooling. And the majority who will no doubt continue to drive no matter what, will contribute financially to the solution. Mass transit IS the solution, but it costs money, and that money can come from congestion charges. I’m all for it.
Kay– you clearly want Canadian devices, and by that, you mean Socialist devices (free and public health care, fair and good governance) however, you’re unwilling to pay for them. Before you go off on a tirade about that, understand that I support that ideal in it’s fullest and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. However, I’m completely realistic about it. To have these things, we have to work for the government (i.e. pay higher taxes). Do you really think that the government wants to raise taxes? No, they don’t. That’s detrimental to the image of the government. Toll roads happen. It’s not just an American thing, most of the M series roads out of London, UK are tolled. Are you going to say that we’re not British? We could only aspire to be so great.
I commute across the MacKay bridge from the Fairmount area to Burnside every day. From my home to my work is 10.5kms and takes me approximately 15 min to get to work (9min with no traffic or red lights, 20 with heavy traffic). I leave at about 7:30am for work as it is right now. If I were to switch to public transit for my daily commute, I would have to leave my house to catch a bus no later than 6:30am and my travel distance would increase to about 15km. I get off work at 4:30pm as is and get home by 5 at the latest usually. With MT, I wouldn’t get home until 6pm at the earliest. So to have my days go from a 9.5 hour day, to an 11 hour day… I’ll pay the extra toll thanks.
Well. I use my car for work, as does my wife. There’s numerous other people that do too. I cannot carpool, as I move around HRM and have irregular hours. We both HAVE to go to Halifax every day. there’s no way around it, unless we get new jobs. So there’s another hit on my pocketbook, paying to use space and roads that I’ve already been taxed to death for. Whatever the hell is wrong with government in NS, its at all levels. Any excuse for them to milk more money out of the people.
Anyone know if NS government has found a way to tax air yet?
What part of “other people will take transit” don’t you people understand?
Of course it’s not perfect, or even possible, for everyone. But to make it easier for some people to take transit makes YOUR car travelling less expensive.
I doubt anyone would even notice an increase, unless it was substantial. A lot of the drivers have a MacPass, so they’re not actually spending cash with each crossing. How many of them have their accounts set up so that it’s automatically topped up when it gets low?
Who’s going to notice if they take out the $30 (or whatever) to top up the MacPass a few days faster than they used to? It’s like having a charity donation or RRSP contribution deducted straight from your paycheque – you barely notice the money coming out.
Yes Tim I get that more people on the bus means less on the roads. its a good point I realize that teh city needs to greatly improve its mass transit system IF it wants more people to use it. Widening a road another 400 M only moves the jam 400M ahead. I just can’t help but feel that the gov’t gets more than enough from me. But thats a whole other issue.
My only concern with this is the initial adjustment period with metro transit IF ridership increases because of this. MT is already at capacity during rush hour as it is (according to their spokesperson who was interviewed back in the fall about crowding on busses, anyway), so…it might turn some people off if the busses are so crowded that they have to wait 30 minutes for another bus when they’ve already waited 20 minutes as it is. But, if it works it could benefit everyone in the long run. It’s a tough call, really.
Also, Never Wrong: I HEAR YOU about the increased time. It takes me 15 minutes MAX from the time I leave my packing garage to get to school. It takes a full hour on the bus. My mom works in dartmouth. It takes her an hour and ten minutes to get home, yet it only takes 20 minutes max driving. That’s a definite turn off for most as far as taking the bus is concerned. It’s easier to take the bus if you work in downtown hfx (parking issues, traffic issues, etc…), but if you work in the outskirts it can be tricky.
NW, I think the toll is meant for people driving into the congested part of the city, not out of it. I’m pretty sure the extra toll would be one way. They don’t charge you to drive OUT of London. Only in. So driving from Halifax to Burnside, you wouldn’t be affected. At least, that would be the sensible approach.
The other thing that would really help, is that if they increased the tolls, and more people were taking the bus, they could start more UPass programs with workplaces in the city. That way it would be even cheaper for people to take the bus, and the city could afford to up the service.
And if you have one of the jobs which requires you to stay late, and it’s a big enough company, you can try and get them to get UPass, based on the service being extended to fit your hours. I would love to see Capital Health on board with UPass, the hours for staff there are outside of rush hour, which can make the busses even worse as far as making your day longer.
Well, the 17, 41 and 42 and 16 routes are all a direct result of Dal, SMU and MSVU adopting the Upass program, People are Stupid, so…you never know.
PAS– there are a hell of a lot of shortcomings with the transit system. Most of them flow from it being administrated in a top-down fashion. There are historical reasons for that which I won’t go into here, but it’s certainly holding the whole system back. What we need is a transit users’ union, with real bargaining power, and what that requires is for professional people to get involved as transit users. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation— professional people won’t take transit until it’s convenient, and transit won’t be convenient until professional people take it.
But we can certainly make progress by better funding the existing system. Capital costs aren’t really the issue– half a million a bus, not much in the scheme of things; it’s on-going operating costs that are the problem. Hence, on-going funding through a transportation agency that (among other things) collects bridge tolls is pretty much required.
You have to admit though, Tim, that there have been some big strides in the past 10 or so years. I grew up in Timberlea, an area that held more population and in a higher concentration than Spryfield proper, and not too far from clayton park. When the BLIP was built and there was a direct route from Timberlea, the residents saw the need for a transit route at least going to lacewood terminal. It took about 4 years and constant pushing to get just rush hour service. 2 years after that, we got hourly service. Where it stayed until about 5 years ago, and they got a bus that runs directly to mumford, etc. Change does happen, I’m not sure a union of transit riders is necessary. There would be too many voices, and not enough cohesion, because I’ve found in this city, people are never satisfied. You could have 5 minute service on spring garden, and people would want 2 minute service. I agree with professional people needing be on the “bus” so to speak. I’m one of them. However, all of the old codgers in my workplace would never be caught dead on the bus. I think we will need to wait until said “old professionals” are out of the way till we can see a increase in professionals that use public transit (and a more direct route from Bedford would help.).
A little secret people. WE HAVE NO TRAFFIC. You want traffic go to Toronto, NYC, etc. I’ve driven in this city for over 30 years and the so called traffic today is much better than years ago when there was one bridge, MicMac Rotary, etc.
My two cents:
I take MT from CP every day. It’s surprisingly faster than driving (I know this is far from the norm). Plus, I get to read a book!
What needs to happen is that all parties involved with traffic flow in the city need to get together (MT, HRM, HDBC, the province and anyone else I am missing) and develop a proper strategy.
It seems to me that every few months, a different entity comes out and makes a new announcment about “solving” the traffic problems in the city.
I am talking about the fast ferry, MT’s five year plan, the various road widening projects, the third harbour crossing, congestion tolls, and now increased tolls on the harbour bridges.
While, there are pros and cons to each idea that has been presented, why have these groups not met to discuss all options out there?
Why don’t these groups get together and group all the pros? If they shared their ideas, I am sure a good master plan may be created.
For example, let’s widen Bayers Road but, make it for busses, or for carpools. Or, instead of a third crossing, let’s invest the money into a rail system.
All of these groups need to get together, or else we will be left with a horrible mish-mash of traffic solutions that do not work together.
Actually, Bitch Please, all those elements are brought together into the Regional Plan, which contains the kind of comprehensive transportation plan you’re talking about.
Problem is, lots of us (e.g., me) think the regional plan doesn’t go far enough and the mix of spending is misplaced and inadequate. In the end, these are political decisions, and always subject to change, especially if circumstances change (price of gas goes through the roof, environmental factors weigh more heavily, etc.) and the people have a different opinion than the bureaucrats.
There’s no one “they” out there that decides everything in one fell swoop. It’s an on-going and complicated process that in the end responds to us citizens. At least, it should.
Clayton Park, I have to admit, is probably one of the best serviced areas to Downtown Hfx and back during rush hour. The 31 and the 34 rock my socks off, quite honestly. They don’t get me up to my apt directly like when I lived closer to the terminal, but there are ALWAYS busses going up towards BLIP and from during rush hour so it’s a pretty decent system. In fact, the 34 leaves downtown AFTER the 21 and gets to the terminal usually before the 21 does. heh.
I would agree that Bedford needs better service DT, esp during rush hour, however, I’m not sure the concentration of transit riders in Bedford is all that high compared to riders coming in from say, Dartmouth. Whenever I’m waiting for a bus on barrington during rush hour I’d say 8 out of 10 of the busses I see are going to dartmouth. And they’re always packed so I’m guessing ridership is greater over there? BUT what strikes me as slightly annoying (well it would be if I lived in Bedford) is how the only busses, aside from the 86 which runs once a day and the 89 which only runs up Hammonds Plains Rd, that go through Bedford go on the Bedford Hwy — no service to the outlying parts.
The 89, I will admit, is a great step for MT in terms of providing more access to Bayers Lake. It’s direct from Glendale in Sackville to Lacewood, and there are two transfers you can make at the terminal or at the stop just beside Parkland (52 and 21), and you can just walk from Parkland/Lacewood to BLIP if you want. I do it all the time.
The 16 is also a great addition. 30 minutes from Lacewood and direct from Parkland. Beats the 52’s all over hell’s creation route (and the 16 tends to smell better, overall). Cuts my mom’s travel time by about 2/3s. When I took some transfer courses at MSVU i could leave my apartment 15 minutes before class and get there right on time (and that included the time it took to walk to the bus stop).
I suppose if we keep nudging MT they’ll eventually listen. They have that big survey going on now, if anyone’s interested. Don’t know the site off the top of my head, but it should be on the MT site. If you fill it out you can even win an ipod!
It’s http://www.hrmlistens.com, I believe.
Better service heading up the Hammonds plains rd would increase ridership tenfold in the Bedford region. You want professionals? That’s where you get em.
Unfortunately the 89 only runs to lacewood so far as service to Hammonds Plains Rd. is concerned. You COULD get on a 31/33/34/35/21 at lacewood and take an express route downtown, but it would be FAR more effective to have a route directly from HPR to downtown during rush hour since it’s quite a bit more lengthy to go from HPR to lacewood than HPR to bedford hwy.
I would like to see the routes in the city re-vamped. There are a few places that have too much coverage and some with not enough. This is because single routes are too long. If the routes were shorter then you may have to transfer more often, but there would be more buses available for each of these short routes. Your initial wait, and wait while transferring would not be as long. I was thinking about this while trying to catch the #7 up to the NSCC Leeds Street campus. Long routes like the #7’s also give it endless opportunities to get held up in traffic. It is always running at least 15 minutes late.
I have filled out the survey at http://www.wedontgivetwoshits.com and expect them to get right on that.
I agree with you, electricmayhem. The 52 for example is ALWAYS late and has one long ass route. It’s especially bad during rush hour (obviously) and on Saturdays. I used that route back in 2005 from beginning to end on a regular basis and the hold ups were always the same places: burnside (so it was late getting to the bridge terminal), the bridge (so it was late getting to Mumford), Mumford to Lacewood (so it was late getting to Lacewood), BLIP (so it was late starting it’s route again which fucked everything else up). And I’d ALWAYS miss my transfers — even when I had a good 10 minutes grace!
It runs every 15 minutes during rush hour now (I think it may even be 10 now), yet I STILL have to wait 30+ minutes on a regular basis at the stop by Parkland for one to show up during this time (on either side, doesn’t seem to matter which way it’s going)…once I waited 40 minutes during rush hour at that stop and what does the driver do? Kicks us all off at the stop by Kent in BLIP because he was “going out of service” (when he should’ve made the loop back to lacewood at least). I waited another 10 minutes for another 52 to come along. If the route had’ve been shorter, there would’ve been fewer opportunities for schedule fuck ups.
The toll increase will not greatly affect the traffic flow. People need to get to work, those who drive versus take the bus and frequently doing so because either they need their vehicle at work, or taking public transit is not an option (bus schedules & routes). People need to get to work, it will now cost me almost $5 daily to commute over the $1.20 it cost previous.
The unfortunate thing is that as traffic is not reduced, the City & Bridge Commission will continue to look at ways to reduce the traffic, such as building an additional bridge. This would cost money not in the budget, therefore increasing taxes and will occur long enough after the bridge toll hike that they will not reduce the tolls or use that money.