Boring council operations aside (ie. sewer renewal and road maintenance), there are two notable topics that surfaced this week at City Hall. The first is a proposal to build a mixed residential-commercial complex on the corner of Quinpool Road and Robie Street. There were even murmurs of tying that development to that of the St Pat’s property next door.
The other exciting tidbit was the approval of recommendations made in a report—that few have ever heard of, despite the fact that it was purportedly assembled through pubic participation—called “Downtown…I’m In.” It means we’ve recognized that downtown Halifax is officially among the lamest urban cores in the country (their words summed up), and we’ve decided to fix it. Here were some of the key suggestions:
Providing free public wifi access: Because nobody likes burning through their entire data plan while they wait for a bus.
Burying power lines: Let’s face it, in this century having tree corpses strung-up with an abundance of rubber cables lining our streets is not scenic. It’s an eyesore. And let’s not forget it also leaves our power supply exposed to notoriously temperamental Nova Scotian weather.
Pedestrian-only streets: This is a tough one, because we have a known parking shortage downtown, which raises the question as to how people would get to said streets if they can’t drive or park on them.
More local cafes and restaurants: Great idea. A must for any great city. However, in Halifax these kinds of suggestions always draw from the woodwork an otherwise invisible populace who just can’t bear the noise of clinking cutlery or muted conversation. They believe our streets should be silent like the grave, that a sidewalk is only a means to attending church or going to work.
Making public transportation better: We’ve all talked to somebody who says “Metro Transit isn’t that bad.” The first sign that something’s bad is usually when you have to quantify it by saying it isn’t that bad. We can do better. And if we want people from all parts of HRM to enjoy downtown Halifax, we need to do better.
For the whole report click here.
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2014.
#1 If the writer thinks Halifax has one of the lamest urban cores in Canada, the writer has not travelled to many of the small and mid-sized cities Halifax compares (very, very favourably) to.
But if that sentiment comes from comparing our urban core to Montreal or Toronto or Vancouver, the comparison actually suggests we’re doing well, since it takes for granted that we should compare ourselves to far larger cities. Our actual urban peers are Regina, Winnipeg, Victoria, Hamilton, and London, ON—and holy crap, we’re way better than them. (Victoria and Winnipeg are kinda charming, but if you think Halifax is quiet, get a load of those dead zones.)
#2 What does Montreal have to do with anything, as per the headline? (Outside of their downtown core, their power lines are above ground too, if that’s what it was supposed to be about…)
#3 We don’t have parking shortage downtown, at all. We have a surplus of people who can think of no other way to get around than in their car. (Which actually is one reason we need to improve Metro Transit.)
Underground power lines? Sure, but who’s willing to pay the large extra costs that come with them?
whoa lets not touch anything to do with NSP. If they have to actually start reinvesting their profits into thing like grid maintenance and upgrades they will need a 40000% rate increase
Remember when NSP was owned by the public? Yeah we got a shit deal when they sold that utility. Perhaps we could buy it back for 10% over the previous sell price, not likely though.