Sam Austin tries to make city use roads better
Making sense of Halifax’s transit piorities
by Katy Jean
The HRM’s announcement that Wi-Fi service at transit terminals would be ending effective April 1 was widely taken as an April Fool’s joke. Because surely we weren’t cutting off a vital service for the public and transit users alike. There was no way the city could make taking transit even less accessible.
HRM had to issue an apology and a more complete clarification to a public reaction of “they must be kidding.”
“We understand the timing may cause some confusion, but this is not a joke. Public Wi-Fi use has significantly declined, and ending the service is expected to save approximately $450,000 in annual operating expenses,” reads the HRM’s statement.
Paired with the discontinuation of paper route maps and schedules, it’s as if Halifax has just given up on transit.
But the day before the not-a-joke April Fool’s debacle, there was a glimmer of what may be some hope for our transit system.
In a long-winded auctioneer type voice, councillor Sam Austin brought forward a motion to Regional Council to create a staff report on, plainly summarized, “transit prioritization.”
Austin’s motion tells staff to try and change the engineering of road allocation to create transit lanes and traffic signals on the HRM’s car-dominated roads.
The motion passed unanimously. Some councillors even chimed in on the benefits for their community.
Sam Austin explained in an interview with Grand Parade, “the city’s growing really quickly and we are seeing more traffic congestion on the roads.”
According to the Integrated Mobility Plan (IMP), 77% of daily commuters are drivers.
“This is affecting transit,” said Austin. “The on time performance for transit is decreasing. Which is actually then causing transit to add time to the scheduling of buses.”
“The buses are slower, and we are actually adjusting the schedule to make them slower to reflect reality.”
