Halifax Population & Growth

[Keith P.]

This initiative would be laughable if it was not so pathetic. Halifax has never planned for growth of over 100,000 people, much less 1 million. Doing as the article says, accommodating them in existing serviced areas, simply will not work as those services are not sized appropriately. We went from a sleepy little city in the 1950s that, if a resident then magically reappeared to visit today, still looks virtually identical in terms of infrastructure. The same 2 lane North St, Windsor St, parts of Robie and Chebucto Rd, and the same bottlenecks DT. We have a lot more buses, but they get stuck at those same bottlenecks. The Macdonald bridge has a third reversing lane but bottlenecks at either end due to unchanged surface streets and intersections. Most of our signalized intersections are dumb and do not adjust to traffic volumes. We treat widening major routes as heresy. And it has always been that way. Currently we have an interest group trying to protect trees on Robie St to torpedo a bus lane.

I sort of think it would make more sense to build a new city-like annex somewhere out between Bedford and Timberlea with its own DT and high-rises there. Start from scratch instead of jamming all those people on the peninsula.