Transportation in the Halifax Regional Municipality
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The Halifax Regional Municipality is a major multi-modal transportation centre for freight and passengers.
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[edit] Air
Halifax International Airport, which serves HRM and virtually all of peninsular Nova Scotia, is located in the northern part of the municipality near the border with Hants County in Enfield.
CFB Shearwater, an Navy air base, is located on the eastern side of Halifax Harbour; its runways are presently being decommissioned as the base converts into a heliport.
There are also 5 separate heliports located in the HRM urban core, several for hospitals. Several privately run aerodromes are also located in rural areas.
[edit] Water
The Halifax Port Authority manages many of the commercial port operations on Halifax Harbour, including bulk cargo, general cargo and intermodal container terminals. The Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard also have extensive waterfront facilities.
[edit] Rail
HRM is the eastern terminus of the Canadian National Railway, which provides direct freight service to Montreal, Toronto, and Chicago for cargo arriving at either of the Port of Halifax's two container terminals, or the port's general cargo and specialized cargo piers.
VIA Rail Canada also operates the Ocean, a passenger train to Truro, Moncton, and Montreal six days a week.
[edit] Road
The urban core is divided by Halifax Harbour and is linked by two suspension bridges: the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge, since 1955, and the A. Murray MacKay Bridge, since 1970. Residents refer to these as the Old (or South) Bridge and New (or North) Bridge, respectively.
Traffic is problematic in many older parts of the urban core area due to geographic constrictions and an aging road network designed for less vehicle capacity than is currently being handled. The Halifax Peninsula, similar to an island, has several bottleneck points through which any traffic leaving the area must pass:
- the Macdonald Bridge
- the Mackay Bridge
- the Armdale traffic circle
- the Fairview interchange to the Highway 102 freeway
- the Bedford Highway (Nova Scotia Route 2)
Vehicle traffic density is increasing somewhat on the peninsula, but the population of workers living in suburban areas or commuting from more distant exurban/outlying areas has increased at a much higher rate in recent decades. Roads in existing developed suburban areas and the historic districts on the Halifax Peninsula cannot be easily expanded.
A proposed bridge across the Northwest Arm to relieve traffic congestion on the Armdale Rotary (it would connect at South Street near Dalhousie University) has been rejected several times by residents of the affluent South End, as well as environmentalists advocating improved rapid transit and better planning to densify residential development close to locations of employment.
Several controversial road widening projects are being debated, including making Chebucto Road three lanes (one reversible), as well as widening Robie Street, the major north-south artery on the peninsula.
Many of the newer neighbourhoods benefit from a network of expressways (Nova Scotia 100-series highways) which were designed for modern automobile traffic and were developed during the 1960s-1980s (Highways 101, 102, 103, 107, 111, and 118) however these roads serve mainly to dump high-speed traffic onto the existing urban low-speed street network.
[edit] Transit
[edit] Urban Core
The HRM urban core is served by Metro Transit. The main forms of public transportation are standard transit buses and a new bus-rapid transit system, as well as harbour ferries.
The ferry system uses three vessels, and connects peninsular Halifax with Dartmouth, offering daily services. It is the oldest continuously-operating saltwater ferry service in North America. Controversial high-speed ferries are under consideration for connecting downtown Halifax with Shannon Park, Bedford, the South Mainland, and Eastern Passage.
The proposed high speed ferry services are viewed with concern by other harbour users and are viewed as a compromise solution for connecting travellers from points along the harbour with downtown Halifax and Dartmouth. Transit surveys have indicated that many existing and potential future users of public transit require service to areas such as universities, hospitals and shopping centres, many of which are located near or adjacent to railway corridors in the region. The current mayor, Peter Kelly, and several regional councillors have favoured instituting a commuter rail or a light rail system on current and abandoned railway lines and several streets in the urban core, however such a proposal would require provincial and federal funding and agreement with railway companies. It has been shelved by HRM staff and politicians, pending the provincial government's creation of a regional transportation planning authority, similar to what eastern Massachusetts did in the 1960s when MBTA was created.
[edit] Rural Areas
A community transit bus service is also run by Metro Transit, serving the exurban communities of Beaver Bank, Fall River, East Preston, Lake Echo, Porters Lake and Grand Desert. There is little public transit available for residents in the other more rural areas especially for the Eastern Shore area of the municipality, a fact which has become a growing bone of contention in the urban-rural tension within the region. The rural area are depended on privately own bus service but recently it become a subject of the province to subsidize the operations due to fact that they go outside the municipality. The municipality's plan is to extend the community bus program to run to Sheet Harbour up through the Musquodoboit Valley to Enfield back down to Dartmouth . Presently anyone needing transport to the urban area are using private shuttle services that use mini-vans or full size vans.
[edit] Bicycle
Halifax Regional Council has stated an interest in improving bicycle transport in the urban core, however since the 2000 municipal election little has been accomplished. A part-time coordinating position was created to oversee the planning and implementation of a bicycle transport plan but this position was eliminated during budget cuts in 2003 with little other than planning/reporting having been accomplished. Overall, HRM remains fairly difficult for bicycles, partially as a result of geography and climate, but also the increased traffic congestion. Despite these setbacks there has been a small increase in the number of bicycle lanes and designated bike routes in the urban core.
[edit] Walking
There are many parks and some disconnected trails in the HRM urban core. There are proposals for a Halifax urban greenway, which is envisioned to ultimately connect or construct trails around the entire perimeter of Halifax Harbour and the Bedford Basin to link downtown Halifax and Dartmouth, however these plans have yet to be enacted. Most streets in the urban core have sidewalks and pedestrian crossings for major roads are signalized. As a cost-cutting measure, property owners in the urban core are required to shovel snow from any adjoining sidewalk during the winter months, with improper enforcement by HRM sometimes leading to poor walking conditions.
