1945 Civic Planning Commission calls for harbour bridges and arterial roads to raise tax income. 1955 The Angus L. Macdonald Bridge opens, increasing traffic to the downtown. 1962 Fourteen acres of land in the newly created Central Redevelopment Area (what was then Jacob and Market Streets) are expropriated and the properties bulldozed. 1967 Construction begins […]
How to fix the city
Posted inNews + Opinion
Somewhere over the Interchange…
Wake up, Halifax. A new day, a new year is dawning, bringing with it a fresh opportunity to bulldoze the mistakes of the past and plan a better future. Time to turn dreams into reality. Finally, after almost five decades clogging up the gateway to downtown Halifax, the Cogswell Interchange is coming down. Later this […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Streetlight scarcity casts risky shadows
[Image-1] Old, ineffective streetlights across downtown Halifax leave streets ill-lit after dusk. For those who commute every day in a city with a higher-than-national assault rate, the darkness around them is an issue of concern. “As soon as it’s dim out—not even dark—I’m always thinking ‘What’s the lighting like? Where am I? How big is […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Crosswalk signals are pushing all the wrong buttons
[Image-1] About six months after he was elected to Halifax council, the city upgraded a major intersection at University Avenue and Robie Street in Waye Mason’s district. It was, according to Mason, “a beautiful piece of engineering which solved a bunch of problems.” But the reaction on the street was not so pretty. “People flipped […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bus ticket monopoly is a hassle for retailers and riders
[Image-1] Public retailers want to make money for the city by selling bus tickets, but HRM keeps telling them “no.” Michele Gerard has been trying to stock Halifax Transit tickets at her store for four years now. The owner of Morris Street’s Atlantic News says she calls the city every year, hoping they’ve changed their […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Forensic lab closure a blow to justice
[Image-1] Halifax’s RCMP forensic lab is closing in March—a move that will either make our clogged justice system more efficient, or delay it further. Forensic labs in Regina and Winnipeg already closed in March 2014, and the Halifax lab will be the final closure of the nationwide consolidation process. Local crime investigators will now ship […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Transit services fall short on accessibility
[Image-1] On a blistering winter evening at the Halifax Shopping Centre, wheelchair user Gerry Post makes his way to a bus stop. It is snowing at 9pm during the Christmas bustle of shoppers—Post just wants to get home. When the bus arrives, all able-bodied passengers pile in. But the driver says he cannot let Post […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
How to fix the city 2015
Criticism, as Winston Churchill said, may not be agreeable but it is necessary. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. Yet every time some persnickety pundit highlights a civic flaw they’re dismissed as putting the “No” in “Nova Scotia.” It’s ironic, how negatively many folks view negative thinking. Quite juvenile, as well, to […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Impounded dogs are at the mercy of slow-moving courts
[Image-1] CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Bastarache visited her dog at Wyndenfog. All visits with Chomper took place at Homeward Bound. Wyndenfog was also incorrectly identified as a pound. It is in fact a boarding kennel. The Coast has removed these references and apologizes for the errors. Chomper was seized by […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The real deal
To eastern Canada’s shock, the former capital of cronyism crowned Naheed Nenshi, a businessman with a conscience and Harvard education, as the oil-belt mayor—one of the most progressive in Canada. If you judge a man by his company, Nenshi’s got sustainability on the brain. Chris Turner, bestselling author of The Geography of Hope: A Tour […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
How to fix the city
“Any other minority group would not accept having a ‘not welcome’ sign on the door. I pay taxes, I shop and go out to dinner, so why am I not welcome in Halifax?” says Ben Marston, one of many wheelchair users who feels marginalized by the city’s dawdling to make this a more wheelchair-friendly place. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Inaccessible Spring Garden
1. Corner of Birmingham Street and Spring Garden Road The curb cut is too narrow and leads the person in a chair out into traffic in order to cross Spring Garden Road. Ben Marston says the curb cuts are especially difficult in the winter. “The crews say they dig them out, but then the sidewalk […]