Bus riders have mixed opinions on bus route changes in downtown Halifax, where construction crews work on the next phase of the Cogswell District Project.
On Wednesday morning, Mel Freeland waited to catch a bus on the Barrington Street sidewalk near city hall, where four bus bays were relocated on Monday.
Freeland said the buses are usually late.
“It’s been bad for a long time, so it kind of has just moved around,” she said. “I haven’t really noticed much yet.”
She said she jokes that the buses don’t really have a schedule and that sometimes you show up and see what comes by. Because of bus delays, she was late for work almost every day even before the construction.
Thirty routes have been detoured from their usual stops at Scotia Square for the next phase of the Cogswell District Project.
Mel Freeland waits for a bus near city hall in downtown Halifax on June 19, 2024. (Jacob Moore/Acadia Broadcasting)
For people who take the bus every morning, these changes “make it all the more difficult,” according to Cody Acker.
“No matter where you go, it’s going to take longer to get there,” he said. “I am late today.”
Dalhousie Professor Daniella Sieukaran said her route to the university typically takes half an hour, but on Tuesday it took twice as long.
She thinks the new changes will be easier to navigate once she relearns where the stops are located.
But she’s new to Halifax and didn’t like navigating bus routes with snow on the ground.
“I know that this detour is going to go on until at least December, and I’m dreading once the snow returns,” she said.
“It’s not going to be fun.”
While people may have been able to go into Scotia Square before, the new stops are outside on the sidewalk near city hall and the Nova Scotia Legislature.
Machinery breaks apart asphalt on Barrington Street June 19, 2024. (Jacob Moore/Acadia Broadcasting)
Some, like Tammy Billard, said not much has changed.
“I thought it would be a lot worse,” she said.
These are a lot of changes for Isaac Ojo’s route to work, but he said it’s a good thing.
“No hold up, no blockage,” he said.
He hasn’t been late since the change. Moving the stops to Barrington Street means these four buses are in one place, he said, so it’s easier to catch the one you’re waiting for.
Before the detour, Vanessa Smith’s bus ride to Dalhousie University, where she’s a physicist, wasn’t so bad. Usually she would leave 10 or 15 minutes before the bus arrives, but that’s because traffic is the biggest issue, regardless of the new route changes.
“It’s not that the buses themselves and the detour is annoying. It’s that everyone is detouring, and that’s what’s annoying,” said Smith.
“It’s a necessary evil, where it needs to be annoying for a little bit before it can be better.”
