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Today, on the short walk from Ecology Action Centre offices to the Carrot Co-op on Gottingen Street, I helped an older man with a cane, a middle-aged man on crutches and an older woman move from the dangerous sidewalk to the middle of the road. I held the hands of that woman as she gingerly moved from a sidewalk covered in inches of impacted snow and ice and now a layer of water, over a thigh-high snowbank and into the street facing oncoming traffic. And then I had to leave her moving along a narrow strip of ice-free asphalt in order to make my next work commitment on time.
In that moment, the disgust and stifling frustration I’ve been feeling about the state of our city’s sidewalks flared into burning outrage.
What the fuck, Halifax?
It has been six weeks, ONE-AND-A-HALF MONTHS, of accumulation and calls for improved service. And today, as the ice warms and rivers run through the streets, I have not seen a single crew of people or machines taking advantage of this great weather to get some work done.
Here are some ideas on how the city can make sure to avoid this kind of unjust appalling fiasco in the future.
1. INVEST IN THE PEOPLE THAT LIVE HERE
One of the most frustrating things about being a young person that moved from elsewhere to work in Nova Scotia is hearing constantly about how no one works here and everyone leaves. It’s true that there are some major population and workforce challenges for us to confront in this province. But here’s what I think is one of the biggest problems facing us. Every level of government worries more about how to attract people and investment from outside the province than about how to make it feasible for those of us that are already here to stay and prosper.
I struggle regularly with whether I should stay here because there are so many moments where it feels like on some structural level I’m not wanted. And nothing’s made me want to leave more than being unable to walk one block safely.
There are several examples of recent municipal spending that are, to put it politely, questionable when we ask who they’re for. A second convention centre that’s all about attracting groups of people that stay here for five days max? Seriously?
Let’s reassess those spending priorities.
2. TAKE CLIMATE CHANGE SERIOUSLY
Cuts to snow clearing budgets were in part justified by a few warmer winters. This winter articulates why we stopped using the phrase “global warming” and started using the phrase “climate change.”
Weather is only going to get more extreme and less predictable as the impacts of human-caused climate change become more pronounced.
At this point in the history of our species’ relationship with this planet, it is absolutely irresponsible and arrogant to base plans and budgets on one year’s weather. Our planet is changing and we need to adapt. That requires foresight, leadership and built-in flexibility in the ways that we manage our homes, our communities and our cities.
Halifax’s Climate Change Risk Management strategy hasn’t been updated since 2007. The city’s 2010 “HRM Climate SMART Community Action Guide to Climate Change and Emergency Preparedness” doesn’t seem to have made it into the city’s planning framework in any real way.
Let’s be real and get down to business.
3. MAKE SOCIAL JUSTICE VALUES THE HEART OF MUNICIPAL DECISION MAKING
Access is a right. Humans build cities. Cities are formed by complex infrastructure that large populations living in high-density communities rely on. Municipal governments exist to make sure that infrastructure serves the people that rely on it in the way it is designed to. At a philosophical and practical level, enshrining the right to accessibility is actually the only justification for the existence of municipal government I can think of.
This isn’t a bunch of people whining about winter. This isn’t some freak event where winter is suddenly upon us and we’ve never experienced it before. This is a series of decisions and non-decisions that did not take the right to access into account and have resulted in a city where many of us can not go about our days contributing to our society in the ways we normally do.
I suppose I should say that the rights of people in cars have been better considered than the rights of people on bicycles or foot or chair or cane or crutch. That’s a whole ball of pathetic sadness I’m loathe to get into further right now.
I love Halifax. I love Nova Scotia. I love this place because there are a bunch of badass people doing incredible things here. We deserve to live in a place that works for us as hard as we work for it.
I want a Halifax that loves me back.
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This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2015.
So you say take climate change serious but this winter wasn’t some freak weather event? I’m not sure, because it’s been one of the worst winters we had in 10 years (in fact we broke our February snow fall record which was set in 1992). We’re $9 million over budget in snow fall removal so it’s safe to say this winter has been a little bit ‘freakish.’
Great article, It’s been way too long, and no end in sight. I have a visitor from Out of province and he is flabbergasted too, especially the streets around all Capital Health , whoever they have contracted their sidewalk maintenance is doing a crappy job.
Except the city has been consistently underbudgeting snow removal costs for the past five years. So yeah, I think it’s safe to blame the city for being woefully unprepared for this year’s winter.
•2014-15: Budgeted — $20 million. Actual — unknown.
•2013-14: Budgeted — $19.99 million. Actual — $24,205,700
•2012-13: Budgeted — $15.12 million. Actual — $18,557,304
•2011-12: Budgeted — $12.42 million. Actual — $18,364,604
•2010-11: Budgeted — $12.25 million. Actual — $18,963,381
•2009-10: Budgeted — $12.44 million. Actual — $18,187,798
Wonderful article….We need someone like you to run for Mayor!!! They say Canadians are too passive, yes at the moment we are all up in arms about what the city didn’t budget for, or do, or should have done. Lawsuits are being threatened and maybe acted upon. (Can we as individuals of Nova Scotia really afford the lawyer fees?) We’re screaming now but give us a week or two of warmer weather and a meltdown, and we’ll end up forgetting this frustration…or heaven forbid we continue to take action and they start raising our taxes so they can afford an anticipated weird weather pattern. Give the city some slack, this is an extreme event for the east coast of North America…I’m 60 years young this January, and I remember a storm back in the sixties that allowed me to skate from Inglis Street to anywhere in the city…What fun! It’s happened before..it will happen again..but when? Another 50 plus years. We are already a have not province, we do not have the population to afford the costs of what was literally dumped on us this February.. but we can continue to badger and gripe and we’ll end up with another tax, and once in place will continue adding an even higher burden on our already stressed out lives of living in the province we love. I know this situation sucks..but suck it up! Ask yourself this: Did you personally fork out the cash to make your own yard safe…have you chain sawed the ice in your driveway, or walkway, paid at least $400. to have your roof shovelled, or have you just crossed your fingers and hoped that all will be ok? Maybe you spent a minimal amount on salt or sand so your entry is passable and your friends won’t sue your ass if they fall on your property. Come on All Maritimers we know we would all love to fork over our own hard earned cash…or we can all just sit back like the passive Canadians and blame our already money stressed government..That’s way easier!!
It has not been “one of the worst winters we have seen in years” and I don’t understand how anyone can make that claim. “Winter” this year didn’t even start until after Christmas. I kid you not, people were out biking with bare hands and unzipped jackets around Christmastime. Our budget, such as it is, will be used up entirely for what amounts to probably 1/2 or 1/4 of the length of a real winter. Should we get storms like last year, starting in November and continuing for the length of a pagan winter, we will truly be fucked. And fucked, surely, as our esteemed leaders have locked us into a 3 year contract. Who the fuck thought that would be a good idea?
Cranky.
Sunday, December 21st, 2014: First day of winter.
And if you can honestly sit there and say it wasn’t one of the worst winters’ in years, when all the data out there says it was, you’re in denial.
Yes, we all know about the equinoxes and solstices but the reality is, here in the Cranky Household we consider winter starting when the heat is begrudgingly turned on which is any where from Mid November to Early December. I had green grass on my front yard heading into New Years, does that sound like a ‘worst winter ever’?
with the extra ice the easiest solution in my opinion would be hire a few hundred minimum wage workers (or recruit them form unemployment) hand them pick axes and beat that ice to crap today. End of my driveway has been terrible for weeks (plow only did one side of the road at 3am and froze 6 feet past my driveway…thanks) two of us made work over over a foot thick ice in 10 minutes today
Author is a professional protester who gets paid to attack Nova Scotian industries that create jobs and bring revenue to our public coffers
You still want to stand by your previous comment Cranky?