Why weren’t we ready for The Big Bump?
If you waited hours to get across the MacDonald Bridge lately, you might be wondering why there wasn’t a better plan to deal with the traffic chaos.
For more than two years, the Halifax Harbour Bridge Commission has invested in a communications campaign for The Big Lift. It drew our attention to the elegant feats of engineering that would be accomplished during nighttime closures.
There were no hints that we should prepare ourselves for potential day-time delays.
This re-decking process has only been done once before, on Vancouver’s Lion’s Gate Bridge, and by the same contractor—American Bridge. In an acute moment of foreshadowing last August, Vancouver’s traffic ground to a near halt on the Lion’s Gate with huge delays, buses cancelled or rerouted and line-ups in transit stations because of a bump on that bridge which was caused by a temporary repair. Sound familiar?
You’d think this would’ve sent HHB running to Halifax Transit and Halifax’s transportation officials to come up with a plan. At that point, it also might have been wise for HHB to inform the commuting public that traffic delays were a possibility.
Yet, when traffic slowed to a near stop as commuters gingerly eased their cars over a rather large bump, Steve Snider, the CEO of HHB, seemed as surprised as the rest of us and suggested in a CBC Radio interview that it was the contractor’s problem to fix.
A good plan could have proposed some legitimate bridge-crossing alternatives in the event of a jam, such as buses-only during peak hours, with parking opportunities on either side, serviced by a high-frequency shuttle and complemented by even more ferries. A strong social marketing campaign designed to inform the public about these options could have helped ease the pressure on the system.
Arguably, no single entity is responsible for this lack of planning, which nearly brought Halifax’s transportation system to a halt.
If this bump has made anything clear, it is the necessity for HHB, Halifax Transit, city planners and the province to get out of their silos and plan the transportation system together. If an Urban Transportation Commission existed, with a mandate to improve the coordination and integration of all modes of transportation, a system-wide contingency plan for The Big Lift would be in place.
Such an agency might’ve had the foresight to use the Big Lift as a golden opportunity to encourage more of what Halifax desperately needs as demand on the transportation system increases: more public transit use and more active transportation choices.
In 2012, a year before the Big Lift was announced to the public, Nova Scotia’s Sustainable Transportation Strategy committed the province to support the creation of an Urban Transportation Commission for the Halifax region. If this happens, we would join a growing number of North American cities, such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, that are taking this sensible approach to transportation management.
It’s not too late. There are still 14 months left of The Big Lift. That’s plenty of time to set up an ad-hoc Urban Transportation Commission to coherently respond to another snag in the re-decking process. And to be proactive about all of our other transportation challenges.
It’s time, Halifax
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This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2015.
You weren’t ready because no car commuters planned for delays and set backs. You believe that the hundreds of dollars a month you waste of your car entitles you to an easy commute, irrespective of construction. You were warned for two years previous and heeded nothing. The clear and obvious delays to date only serve to harden your resolve to use that same route. You chose to live in a place other than Halifax and are now paying the price. Stop complaining about something over which you have control.
I contacted Halifax Transit the day after the complete disaster that was the first installation of the new piece of the bridge. I suggested they think about increasing buses to the ferry terminal so that those who could travel by ferry could have a link from the ferry to the big traffic zones – the hospitals, universities and Spring Garden Road area. They said they had consulted and done all they could to anticipate these kinds of issues. Clearly that was not the case. In fact two days later they said they had decided to implement a shuttle system which would take the increased passengers from the ferry to Barrington Street. So, they didn’t contemplate a lot of what they all had known would happen, as they experienced in BC. There was a lot of talk about traffic issues, but there was NEVER any comment that traffic could and would come to a complete halt if there was an interruption in planned work. I follow the Bridge Commission on twitter and at no time did anyone ever suggest this would happen. We all survived, and now we know it can happen, pretty much without any advance notice, but I do think they really didn’t do all their due diligence. And notwithstanding the opinion of the commentator above, I did make accommodations so I could drive my car to work. I leave the house early each morning, by 6:30 at the latest. It still took me 1.5 hours to get to work, in what is normally a 20 minute drive. If we had been told when the bridge commission knew that there were major issues, people COULD have left early. Telling people there might be traffic delays is not the same as saying we think there could be times when, during regular business hours, the bridge will not open.
Oh please. This is not the first time that the old bridge has had multiple closures. The surface of the deck was redone somewhere around 99/00 and the world didn’t end, so anyone complaining about the delays now is acting like a spoiled baby who doesn’t want to change their precious routine.
Give me a fucking break. What did people think was going to happen? I’m thinking only the truly clueless thought this would not result in traffic problems.
How would parking magically appear on the other – especially the Halifax – end of the bridge? And where would one go once the shuttle bus deposited you there? People aren’t crossing the bridge to go to North St or Wyse Rd. To be at the mercy of Metro Transit, who simply do not go to many destinations in any kind of useful manner, is absurd.
Add more ferries? Where would more ferries magically appear from? The ones we have are in full service during the morning commute on a fifteen minute schedule. It takes about fifteen minutes from point to point and loading/unloading passengers. Can’t make it go any faster. How exactly could that service be increased? It’s not like there’s ferries not in use sitting around waiting for times like these to be utilized.
No, I’m not buying it, the author is just one of those spoiled drivers that thinks there should never be a hold-up or delay on their precious roads. Reality check- not everything is foreseeable in the world of construction. Shit happens.
Interesting that everyone assumes you’re a spoiled whinny driver, when I know you commute by foot and bike. The point is not the traffic problem, those are everywhere. The point is the need for a unified, cross-departmental approach to transportation altogether, and taking advantage of congestion as an incentive for change, and that’s a point very well made. Thanks.
There was plenty of notice for this! It was widely understood that the bridge is getting a new deck for at least a year. This is hardly a trivial event, and is going to cause some traffic disruption until its done.
I anticipated these kinds of problems, and that I would have to plan getting around accordingly. I don’t know anyone who did not think there would be significant traffic interruptions.