Metro Transit Heads Downtown

I try and I try not to get started writing about Halifax Regional City Council goings on....I am trying to keep this site about things going on in Halifax in terms of entertainment and other events. But occasionally, perhaps more occasionally than I want, I find myself drawn into some of the stuff that comes from the Council Meetings.

The Councillors have just been given a report on public transit that is recommending raising the bridge tolls and using the money to pay for more buses. Unfortunately the report writers didn't do all their homework or they would have known that bridge tolls are outside the authority of the Council. The Bridge Commission, to their credit, said any toll increase is going to pay for bridge repairs and upkeep....good thinking, especially with all those heavy buses on the bridges.

Before I go to far off on a tangeant let me say that I am impressed with much of our Transit Service. The Park and Go places with free parking, like Woodside Ferry are great. The express buses, that load up and head straight for their destination. The service to a lot of outlying areas. All impressive. I haven't a bone to pick with transit really, just a bone to pick with the kind of ideas that are coming forth.

Increased bridge tolls, which by the way are kind of discrimnatory to commuters who live in Dartmouth, are not the only idea Council is considering, they want to get the rest of the transit money from...you guessed it, car drivers. They will do this by raising parking meter fees, who can find a meter anyway? Also they want to do away with any free parking, which I didn't think there was much of downtown anyway,

The theory is, people won't take the bus if they can park for free...uh-huh...cause taking your car is way more convenient than taking a bus....I get that....

The report also suggests adding a fee to vehicle registrations, which by the way are under the perview of Provincial legislation, not HRM, and some new taxes, like gas and property tax. Tell that one to somebody living outside the city, but still part of HRM...tell someone in Ship Harbour, or even Dartmouth, who never drives to Halifax to work, that their property taxes just went up to pay for more buses to downtown Halifax....tell them...I dare ya...

The report also suggests shutting down car traffic completely in some areas of the downtown to make room for buses. The suggested Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road could be only for buses, lots and lots of buses.

So...there is little or no parking left in downtown Halifax anyway, and revitalizing it is more of a pipe dream than a possibility, so why not make it even less attractive as a place to start a business by making getting there a little more difficult than it already is, under the auspices of making it better by sending more buses downtown. If you are a lawyer working downtown, your clients will have to come by bus...if you are trying to sell furniture in a retail store downtown, your customers will have to lug their new sofa home on the roof of the bus...if you are...well you get the picture...

Instead, how about considering more ferries from Dartmouth and Bedford, maybe reinstating a train line or even better a monorail from Dartmouth through Bedford and into Halifax? Free parking at the Dartmouth and Bedford stations. How about some decent roads in and out of the downtown core, maybe some reversing one way roads? How about some affordable parking in the downtown that doesn't require the tourists to walk uphill from the Harbour to get to places like Spring Garden Road? How about realizing that a good deal of Barrington Street is empty shops anyway, tear them down and put up a parking lot or two or three. That way the surviving shops might have a chance of survival and business might be able to locate in the downtown.

Or...we can all take the bus to Dartmouth Crossing and Bayers Lake and forget about the downtown.