It’s been nearly one week since the province announced the bridge tolls were coming down and one councillor is concerned about how it will affect the flow of traffic.
David Hendsbee who is on the board of the bridge commission says based on experiences elsewhere, traffic may get a lot heavier on both sides of the harbour once tolls are gone, and we may not have the infrastructure to handle it.
“We have the Nantucket into Dartmouth and into Wyse Rd. We have North Street in Halifax. We have the Windsor Street Exchange and Robie Street in Halifax, and we have the 118 Highway in Dartmouth. So, we have infrastructure issues. We gotta look at it.”
He says getting across the bridge is one thing but once you are off the bridge it’s another story.
In order to try to ease congestion leading up to the MacKay, a redevelopment plan was presented to council, but due to lack of transit and bus lanes, it was scrapped.
Hendsbee says he will bring the motion back to the table, Tuesday.
Unclear layout
Removing the bridge tolls was an election promise from Premier Tim Houston and was made good last week when the provincial budget was announced.
The move sparked mixed reactions, and it is still unclear what exactly what the layout will look like.
Hendsbee says we have to consider that once the toll plaza is taken away the space where traffic flows through will become narrower.
“So, basically you’re going to have just one lane or two lanes going through four or five lanes into one or two later. It will take away the queuing lanes for sure. Will that back up the traffic going the other way?”
Looking ahead
The tolls gather $40 million every year.
Hendsbee says that helped the commission do any significant upkeep to the bridges but what the focus should now shift to is replacing the Mackay.
“We’ve got about 15 years left of usable life of that span and we’ve got to start planning now for that replacement. Then we can look at the corridor, securing the land, moving any obstructions like the power line towers that Nova Scotia power have. There may be some buildings that may need to be acquired and moved.”
He says these things take time and the planning needs to start now on what is going to be a multi-year project.
Going across both harbour spans will be free as of April 1.
