On December 7, 2021, Halifax’s city council directed staff to develop a plan to make Spring Garden Road available only for buses. But even though city staff in the road safety world know that signs, education and enforcement don’t really change driver behaviour, the city’s bureaucracy still thought the pilot would be successful when it launched on July 4, 2022. Predictably, the pilot crashed and burned in days.
A few months later, in September 2022, staff came back and suggested physical barriers that only allow buses through, like the ones Halifax Transit has at the Highfield Terminal. At that meeting, city staffer Mike Conners was “reluctant to put a date down” because it “depends on what we recommend,” but was “optimistic that something can be installed by spring” 2023.
In the spring of 2023, staff instead came back to the committee and explained that installing something would have budgetary implications, and it was too late to include anything in the budget, so it would be 2024 at the earliest. Councillor Patty Cuttell then further delayed the project when she got the motion amended to direct staff to re-consult with business owners, which happened in April 2024. In May 2024, on Reddit, councillor Waye Mason said he expected the staff report to come back to the committee in June. Staff told The Coast that this report would be back in front of the committee in July.
It is now July, and this week’s transportation standing committee meeting does not have the transit-only pilot on the agenda. In an email city spokesperson Brynn Budden said this delay is easily explained because “like with any major project, there have been challenges along the way, including staff turnover and competing priorities.”
We are now quickly approaching the four-year anniversary of council’s instructions to staff to make Spring Garden a transit-only corridor. Section 318 of the Municipal Charter clearly states that our city council has full control over what streets look like, and their power to enact this change is absolute.
Based on the (lack of) progress so far, it will likely take over four years spanning two council terms for our municipal government to restrict car traffic on two city blocks. This is a relatively minor project—it’s installing some gates, not redesigning the Windsor Street Exchange—and the city has all the power it needs to enact this change. And yet, our city struggles to achieve what should be a very easy task for a “world class” city like Halifax.
This, in turn, begs the question: If our municipality struggles with even the most basic planning exercises where they alone have the power and jurisdiction to enact change, then how are we supposed to have confidence that our city is ready to adapt to climate change when they can't even figure out how to use their power to control car traffic on two city blocks within one council term?
gd2md-html: xyzzy Mon Jul 22 2024