Quote:
Originally Posted by Summerville
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"And in Halifax, turning itself into a relatively compact, walkable, climate-friendly city and shunning sprawl has become embedded in all planning decisions right up to the mayor's office.
"Our city is committed to economically and environmentally sustainable growth," said Halifax Mayor Mike Savage last week in an email. And it's not just hot air, outside experts like Gordon say Savage has been making it happen."
There is simply no way to reconcile this quote with the City's planning decisions over the past 20 years. Instead of development, HRM prioritized height limits, view planes, a Byzantine development approval process, and obstructionism in the guise of community councils and special interest groups. Most of those obstacles remain in place. Some of them have been enshrined into the planning process.
Similarly, the lack of progress in modernizing transit and Halifax Transit's inability to ensure consistent service has cast a pall over transit as an alternative. Simple example: what incentive is there for a family of four with a dog to surrender their climate-controlled vehicle for a bus? What is HRM offering that is better? There are *hundreds* of anecdotal stories online about people taking *hours* to get to locations by bus that would take minutes for cars.
If the objective was to reduce or remove cars from the urban core, then anti-car proponents - who have controlled HRM policy for more than a decade now - have done little to actually make it happen.
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