News 1. The border Writes Stephen Kimber: In the past month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped 21 vessels in the Gulf of Maine “looking for illegal immigrants.” Illegal immigrants? From Canada? Or should that be to Canada? Click here to read “Donald Trump and the border: He stands on guard for he.” This article […]
What’s wrong with the Barrington Street bridge ramp, and can we fix it?
Last week I wrote about the new street network being proposed for the land currently occupied by the Cogswell interchange, and asked why the city was proposing not to include a transit priority corridor along the full stretch of Barrington Street that’s being re-designed. The current plan does include some transit priority lanes on Barrington […]
The Cogswell redesign’s transit failure
The newly passed Integrated Mobility Plan calls for a transit priority corridor on Barrington Street, but the Cogswell redesign plan doesn't include it. Why not? Blame planners who design for the status quo.
The Cogswell Lands plans have toured around the city for the past two weeks in an effort to get some public input on the greenspaces that will be part of the plan. (Not where the greenspaces are, mind you, but what might go in them. You can check out the plans and weigh in online...
Transit passes coming for 16,800 people on income assistance, but for some, this means already paltry incomes will go down
UPDATE (May 15, 2018): No passes have yet been issued to income assistance recipients, though they are still expected for “late spring”. Some Examiner readers wrote in to express concerns over the fact that the passes, which will feature a photo identification, would violate people’s privacy by revealing their status as income assistance recipients. […]
Mind the cap: why council should open up the low income transit pass program to all who need it
Halifax Transit wants to limit participation in its Low Income Transit Pass program to protect the agency from an outlandishly argued worst-case scenario. Here’s hoping councillors, starting with the Transportation Standing Committee on Thursday, can see through the absurdity.
In principle and out of practicality, councillors should tell Halifax Transit to lift the cap on low income bus passes. In a report coming Thursday to council’s transportation committee, Halifax Transit recommends against lifting the participant limit for its low income bus pass program, with a flimsy, alarmist claim that doing so could cost them...
Is Gottingen the right street for a bus express lane?
Because the ramp from Barrington Street to the Macdonald Bridge is too tight a turn for buses, the north end business district could be turned into a bus expressway.
This afternoon, city council’s transportation committee will consider whether or not to continue planning for a north-bound bus lane along part of Gottingen Street. The plan would see 51 parking and loading spaces removed from both sides of the street, to make room for two vehicle lanes and one northbound bus lane starting at Cogswell […]
Halifax Transit pitches Bus Rapid Transit
Alternative headline: Halifax Transit isn't pitching Bus Rapid Transit.
Citizens gathered Monday afternoon and evening to look at preliminary sketches of what a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) network might look like for Halifax. Or did they? The citizens were there, but I’m not entirely sure what they were looking at amounts to BRT. Here’s how the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), an...
IMPing along: under Halifax’s new transportation plan, what will change?
Highlights from council's opening budget talks on transportation and the Integrated Mobility Plan.
Last week, Halifax council met with city staffers to talk budgets, big picture style, in advance of nitty-gritty budget deliberations in the coming months. It’s worth recapping some of the highlights from the discussions for the city’s two big transportation departments — Transportation and Public Works (TPW) and Halifax Transit. (You can check out the...
The Herald’s news reporting on Northern Pulp Mill looks like a packaged advertising deal: Morning File, Tuesday, January 16, 2018
1. Fracking “On the same day that Nova Scotia’s governing Liberals introduced legislation to ban high volume hydraulic fracturing in the province, I happened to be on a ‘fracking tour’ in the U.S. with a bus load of other environmental journalists in a place that had instead embraced it,” writes Linda Pannozzo. That news was […]
2018 should be the year we fix accessible transportation in Halifax
Gerry Post thinks Halifax Transit should start contracting accessible taxis to take on Access-A-Bus service.
UPDATE: (7:50am, January 12, 2018) This story has been edited to reflect improvements to bus stop accessibility, potential changes to tie down systems, and comments from Councillor Waye Mason. On one of the first cold days of this winter, I was leaving the Central Library at closing time, bundled up for a chilly walk home. A...