Halifax council approved a $4.5 million expenditure for the Washmill underpass project, bringing total cost of the project so far to $15.5 million, $5.5 million over budget. The project is “the biggest boondoggle in HRM’s history,” said councillor Gloria McCluskey, an assessment no one disagreed with.
The underpass connects suburban Clayton Park to the big box land of Bayers Lake Industrial Park, via what’s now a cul-de-sac next to the Empire Imax theatre. But the $15.5 doesn’t cover needed intersection improvements at Washmill Court and Chain Lake Boulevard, which will likely cost millions more. Those costs are put off to some distant future date; in the meanwhile, the intersection will become its own sort of post-apocalyptic traffic hell until the money is found—that is, the underpass project, supposedly built to improve traffic flow in the BLIP, will actually make traffic worse.
The staff report recommending the new expenditure is a text-book example of dissembling bureaucracy run amok. Almost $6 million of the underpass costs are shuffled off into a magic “business park reserve fund,” which staff then implies is somehow not HRM money, but of course city money is city money, no matter how much cover-your-ass bureaucrats want to pretend otherwise.
In any event, council approved the new expenditure on a 18-3 vote, and the underpass will be completed this summer.
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This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2011.
Big golf clap for HRM staff!
Regardless of what you think of the overpass and the overall handling of the issue by HRM (which is appalling to say the least) I don’t think its a fair assumption to make that the traffic will be worse than current. Tim: have you done any traffic studies to back that kind of claim up? Its really hard to believe that more capacity equals less flow.
Any private sector employee(s) that lead a project which ran $5+ million over budget on a $10 million project would be fired full stop. At HRM city hall nobody even gets their hand slapped, they just move on to the next project fuck up and waste of taxpayer money.
If the new CAO or councillors had any balls they would demonstrate some oversight and hold someone accountable.
I wonder how people in Dartmouth feel about their taxes flowing to the BLIP. The city is subsidizing the competition for Burnside and Dartmouth Crossing.
If there was an award for the most fucked up city in Canada, my money would be on HRM at or near the top.
Good job funding the sprawl that has destroyed this town.
Dartmouth has recieved its fair share of funding for the development of Dartmouth Crossing infrastructure, and work done for the Mic Mac mall access. Work has been done on improving access to the new Bedford developments and plans have been developed for removing the Cogswell interchange. Every area of Halifax is receiving attention – Bayers may not be an environmentally sound concept, but it does draw a lot of traffic and improving flow into the development will reduce idle times. HRM is getting bigger (slowly) and infrastructure needs to keep pace. I like a lot of Gloria’s rants to council, but her defence of Dartmouth isn’t always reasonable given the growth throughout HRM.
Note to icfy95: Gloria’s rant about a boondoggle was about the ridiculous cost over-run and mismanagement of this specific project by HRM management NOT growth of HRM or inequalities of Dartmouth funding. You sound suspiciously like another councillor or HRM employee, as you completely missed the point of Gloria’s comment it would makes sense that you are a councillor or HRM staffer…. wrong as usual.
Longwalker: More capacity most certainly means less flow. It’s called “triple convergence”. You build more roads, so more people are encouraged to drive on them, and then there’s congestion, and then you’re justified to build more roads again. It’s a vicious cycle until alternative modes of transportation are provided (walking, cycling, transit).
Building an underpass does not mean that traffic will magically get drawn to it. The traffic that is going to Bayers Lake is going there for a reason and if this is more convenient then they will use it as opposed to other routes. BUT IT DOES NOT CREATE TRAFFIC ITSELF!!! That is an old planner’s chestnut that has been discredited but still pops up.
Bo Gus, thank you for clarifying that to Leah. Yes Leah, there is a long term probability that traffic will increase if the capacity for it exists but over the next decade we certainly won’t see that sort of trend. A new overpass doesn’t create more traffic out of thin air. I totally agree that more has to be done for alternative modes of transport, but are many people going to be walking to Bayers lake? Didn’t think so, it’s simply not feasible. The new overpass will actually have the advantage of connecting at the top of Main ave in fairview and hopefully a bus route will reflect the better road infrastructure. Nobody wants to walk all the way up Main ave, only to walk all the way down Geizer hill to Bayers lake and the have to walk ALL THE WAY BACK up and down again.
Longwalker, it’s been proven that you can’t win “the congestion race” by adding more capacity. Los Angeles is about 70% asphalt and has terrible commutes. Beyond 70% asphalt coverage, you are living in a parking lot.