Take a look at the latest from Bousquet's Blog, from recently displaced ex-Red Star "progressive journalist" Zane Woodford:
https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/city-...ring-covid-19/
So if I read this right, an urban planner who couldn't make a living at that decided to go into the restaurant business at the worst possible time (though there are whispers he just took the business over from his father who left a bunch of people holding an empty bag of promises), and now is blaming HRM for his problems. Of course, The Usual Suspects - the HCC, the EAC, along with whack-job Martyn Williams and the guy who came up with the silly crosswalk flags among others - all jump in to support the effort to short-circuit the long, expensive and largely unpopular bike lane development plan in HRM. Instead, these activists see that opportunism might help them advance their agenda for their utopian vision of the future, and are calling for instant action to fundamentally change the nature of many streets in what they undoubtedly think would be a permanent way, because you just know once these things go in they aren't ever coming out. Of course there is a cadre of ideologically-driven Council members who are only too happy to help them out in that, along with others too dumb or sleepy to know any better, and they are using this as an opportunity to grandstand for their very blurry vision of the future.
What is truly sad is that Woodford and his employer are using this as a way to smear not only HRM Chief Exec Jacques Dube but also the traffic authority guy, Taso Koutroulakis, whose jobs include the need to keep Council from doing silly, stupid things like this on a whim, and to ensure that the desires of one interest group do not unduly affect the majority in unduly negative ways.
There are plenty of ways to make walking with proper social distancing easier in areas that may need different measures. Most streets do not have this problem but some downtown likely do, even with the vastly reduced traffic and activity levels at present. At a time when HRM needs to be cutting spending dramatically to accommodate the new reality, this Council is still wanting to waste even more money on dumb things like this.
The fall election cannot come soon enough to throw this bunch out.
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