Halifax traffic will get better, public works minister promises

Public Works Minister Fred Tilley acknowledges that commuting around the Nova Scotia capital can be a drag.

“If you talk to the public, I don’t think things can get much worse,” he told reporters Thursday after a cabinet meeting.

Last summer the province released a long-anticipated report on improving transportation in Halifax and communities within an hour’s drive. More than nine months later, Tilley said the province has started acting on more than half of the report’s recommendations.

Traffic congestion will get better, Tilley assured, but it will “take a little bit of time.”

“A lot of these things are in the works as we speak. Some are shorter term … and some are longer term, but we’re committed to improving traffic in the HRM area,” he said.

Tilley pointed to several pieces of ongoing work including a feasibility study for passenger rail and an assessment of possible upgrades to Highway 102.

There’s also an ongoing search for someone to operate an inter-municipal transit service, and investigations into high-occupancy vehicle lanes and technology that detects when traffic signals need to change. The work is all being managed by Crown corporation Link Nova Scotia.

Asking for federal help

Tilley said the province is asking Ottawa for money from a public transit fund, which is supposed to dole out $3 billion annually for a decade, starting this year. The capital fund is meant to help upgrade and expand transit vehicles and infrastructure, and active transportation infrastructure.

Link Nova Scotia said it submitted a plan to Ottawa in December as a first step in the application process and is awaiting comments. Spokesperson Megan Couture said the details of the plan will not be made public while Ottawa is reviewing it.

She said the submission aligns with the regional transportation plan’s recommendations and “is intended to demonstrate the level of need for major transit infrastructure in the Halifax region.”

She would not say how much money was requested.

Opposition leaders were skeptical that anything will change under the current plan.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender said the Progressive Conservative government is not paying enough attention to active transportation — walking, biking and the like — as a means to take more people off the roads. Meanwhile, she said, people are losing time stuck in gridlock and spending money on increasingly expensive gas.

“They don’t seem to be taking the issue seriously and it’s something that is literally driving people out of our city.”

Interim Liberal Leader Iain Rankin said he does not see any improvements on the horizon.

“All the special planning areas that are going to add tens of thousands of units to pinch points that are already there are going to make it worse,” he said.

Rankin said plans for increasing urban density need to be better aligned with public transit.

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