Launched in the fall of 2009, the Halifax Regional Municipality’s five-year strategic operations plan laid out the city’s future transit initiatives, full of good ideas to provide better service for people moving from point A to B in the HRM. It charts projected population growth, assesses bus routes and suggests service changes and improvements.
But its laudable goals have been overshadowed by more recent developments—the Larry Uteck interchange and Washmill Lake extension—$20 million going towards road building that could have been put into transit or affordable housing on the peninsula—plus plans in the works to widen Bayers Road. All infrastructure spending that speaks to the car-driving, gas-guzzling society in which we live.
“We need a culture that walks more,” says Jen Powley, the HRM coordinator of the Ecology Action Centre’s transportation issues committee. Her solutions to the problems of transit are sound and simple. “We need to walk or bike to where we work. We need to work on prioritizing transit corridors and putting busses on the routes that really work at high frequency. So people do shift from their cars and stop thinking of buses as ‘loser cruisers.'”
To make that happen will require more affordable housing in downtown Halifax and Dartmouth. HRM homes cost an average of $262,000 in 2011, out of the price range of a lot of families starting out. But then consider the added bills associated with owning a vehicle: “If you look at how much you’re paying on a car, or two cars, you might as well put it on your mortgage,” suggests Powley.
None of this is to say that HRM’s commitment to increasing ridership isn’t a good idea. And the Smart Trip E-Pass, a pilot project starting in May, could really help (provided it gets the go-ahead from council). The idea is that participating companies would be able to offer employees $630 for an annual transit pass—the value of 11 months of bus and ferry trips—and the employers would make up the difference.
“The E-Pass is a step in the right direction,” says Powley, who also credits Metro Transit for starting to use Twitter to inform its ridership. “But Metro Transit had already been involved in an E-Pass program with the EAC three years previous. I hope they are not re-inventing the wheel.”
In the past the issue was capacity, so the hope is that if enough businesses sign on, everyone wins. Powley also suggests Metro Transit “also needs to do an update in timing of its routes.”
One of the best new ideas for a change in attitude to transit is the Blue Route initiative, a plan to improving bicycle infrastructure, the product of a partnership between the Nova Scotia Bikeways Coalition, Bicycle Nova Scotia, Mountain Equipment Co-op and the province.
“The interesting thing about the Blue Route initiative is that it has gained a lot of traction with powers that be,” says Peter Williams of Eastwind Cycle. “There is cabinet support, many in the NDP caucus are aware of what it is and understand that it is a relatively simple project in terms cost to political benefit ratio. Another key to success is general acceptance by Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal and support from Health and other provincial departments.”
For more information, a PDF is available at halifax.ca/boardscom/documents/Bikewayssummary.pdf, or visit bikeways.ca.
CarShareHFX steps up
In 2011, CarShareHFX partnered with Communauto—Canada’s first car-sharing organization, founded in 1994 in Montreal—to “create some efficiencies,” as Pam Cooley, president of CarShareHFX explains it, allowing the company to reduce its fees.
“It used to be that a personal or family membership was $200 annually,” says Cooley. “Now it’s down to $39 per person.”
If you visit the company’s website, you’ll find two programs to choose from, reflecting the different way people use cars. There’s the open program, which costs $39 annually for anybody, plus a usage fee of $5.95 an hour plus $.17 per kilometre. Gasoline, maintenance, bridge passes and insurance is part of the price. Then there’s the liberty program, which is for committed car sharers and offers a higher rate of annual fees, but then more savings on the hourly rates, as low as $2.75.
Just past its third anniversary, the company now has 13 vehicles in the fleet. And it has other deals. For example, Killam Properties and Southwest Properties staff and residents can get $1 off the hourly fee. There’s free parking at the Waterfront Development corporation and the Port of Halifax park lots, as well as car-sharing contracts with the provincial government and the HRM.
Furthermore, CarShareHFX partnering with Metro Transit with the E-Pass, so that anyone who uses the E-Pass will also have a big discount on car usage. For more information on CarShareHFX, you can find it at 2459 Agricola Street, 406-7439, or online at carsharehfx.ca.
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2012.
I hate to say it, but it took a Transit strike to get Haligonians doing what they should have been doing all along – walking and/or carpooling.
The roads in HRM are well beyond their capacity for traffic.
One only needs to look at Herring Cove Road, St. Margaret’s Bay, Bayer’s Road, Mumford Road, Joseph Howe Drive and Quinpool Road – just to name a few – during rush hour to see bumper to bumper to bumper to bumper traffic as far as the eye can see.
And many of those vehicles have one person in them.
It would be great if we could expand the roads, but we can’t. Take Herring Cove Road for instance: It’s a single lane of traffic each way. It should easily be a double lane of traffic…but how could you do that when it’s lined end to end by homes, businesses and malls?
It’s not possible. The costs associated with it would be astronomical and make the price tag on the Bayer’s Road widening proposal look like pennies in comparison.
So, what can you do?
Stop driving as frequently.
Start a carpool board at your office. Walk whenever you can…and make sure that you keep doing it even after the Transit Strike is over.
I would also love to see businesses encourage their employees to carpool whenever possible. They could offer up “premium” parking spaces or maybe even gas vouchers as incentives to their employees. Maybe the government could step in and offer a price reduction on gas to people that are actively carpooling.
I know the last part is likely just wishful thinking on my part, however, I truly hope to see that the people who have taken up walking and/or carpooling continue to do so well after the Transit strike ends.
@Hooligan
Problem is, I’m not sure it will last. The honest truth is that carpooling sucks. It’s great for people going from the same location to the same destination at the same time, but how often does that happen? Add to the fact that it means there is a heavy dependancy on each other (“I can’t afford to be sick, people are depending on me for a ride!”) and carpooling becomes a pretty stressful proposition for the vast majority of the population. In the past two months people have been doing it and accepting it because it was the option they could most easily transition to without the bus. But as this strike wears on I think you’ll see a lot of people (although probably not everyone) say, “Fuck it, I’m getting a car. I can’t take this any more.” I don’t like this proposition, but I think it’s the unfortunate truth.
I’d go much further than hipp5: most people prefer driving. There is no other explanation for the fact that the majority of people with choices elect to drive. They will drive even though it costs far more than the alternatives, and even when it’s the worst lifestyle choice. They will drive even when it takes them more time to drive and park than it does to commute by foot or by public transit or by bike. This isn’t speculation – this is observable fact.
Given that, the only possible factor that will tilt the balance is cost of gas, in conjunction with rising expenses in other areas also affected by fuel costs, like food, home heating, well, ummm, everything actually. People will stop driving when they cannot pay for it. Period.
We have to be realistic about public transit and walking and biking. Even with the transit strike there is a derisory number of people who actually walk to work. Most people aren’t fit enough to either walk or bike to work. Most workplaces aren’t equipped with showers for those who would like to try and know they’ll be a bag of sweat…and why should someone pay for a club membership someplace just to shower? Public transit, for when it comes back? Give it up, I’ll bet not even 10 percent of MT ridership is composed of people who could afford a car.
Like it or not, the only way to decrease use of the car is to be financially punitive. Don’t even wait for rising fuel costs to have more and more of an effect. Jack bridge toll fees. Put tolls on all feeders onto the peninsula off the mainland. Restrict or eliminate driving on a number of streets downtown.Increase property taxes on outdoor parking lots so the owners have to raise parking rates. Until you do things like that nobody will stop driving. If you think they will you’re just wildly optimistic.
Thanks to Ken Wilson the Dartmouth Crossing project will really boom. Several office towers are planned and many new apartment projects are on the way. Younger people will be able to live and work in one location without the need for transit. The developer may start a mini-bus service which drives around the development to serve the area and perhaps link to MicMac Mall. I hope HRM backs away from the airport route and the less economic routes when this strike ends, they need to put the squeeze on the ATU and find more alternatives to Metro Transit. A non-profit start-up could receive council funding to serve certain routes, Mic Mac to Dartmouth Crossing could be one.
This monopoly has to be broken.
In Florida most of the malls and outlet areas, even in smaller Dartmouth sized cities, have their own shuttle bus when public transit isn’t otherwise available. I think the Mic Mac Mall – Dartmouth crossing shuttle is a GREAT idea. I live across from Mic Mac Mall, and even pre-bus strike I’d never take the 57 to Dartmouth crossing! 1 hour service – lol! Yeah right!
There is an attitude prevalent in Halifax which I’ve seen nowhere else, i e that only “poor people” take the bus. I have neighbours who’ve never used a bus, wouldn’t know how. This is why road widening at any cost has so much support amongst what I can only call the brain dead, green-ignorant and totally selfish citizens of this city.
Rush hour traffic on major routes has obviously passed saturation point. and the only remedy lies in bus lanes, car pool lanes, tolls : solutions which other cities instituted decades ago but somehow slipped under the radar at asphalt obsessed Halifax City Hall.
I have been observing metro bus usage and operations in Halifax for the past twenty years. I work, eat, play, pray and party downtown. Needless to say, i never take the bus and dont believe they are by any means ‘green’.
The bus system in Halifax is broken, too many buses and too much infrastructure. I believe Halifax is much better off now without a bus system. Take for instance the train of buses moving along barrington st. clogging the entire city with only a few riders. Sometimes there are up to 12 buses in a row on Barrington st. No buses should be allowed into the downtown core, lets look at Vancouver..sky rail system!
Halifax is by far a more ‘liveable city’ without buses. Take into consideration their ‘green footprint’ , loud noisy air brakes , squealing brakes, breakdowns, increased traffic congestion, air pollution increases and ignorant bus drivers.
The solution is moving away from mass gas/diesel/airbrake transit towards small fuel-electric efficient cars.
Lets face it…the bus system is broken and its time for a change.