More night work? Police direction? Halifax mayor calls for action plan to ease construction-related traffic gridlock

It’s an absolute nightmare trying to get somewhere in Halifax these days when traffic grinds to a halt because there’s road construction . . . everywhere.

But is it just a sign of the times that we should all get used to, or can anything be done?

Mayor Andy Fillmore offered up a motion at Tuesday’s Halifax regional council meeting for an action plan to ease traffic snarls around road construction.

“A four-kilometre trip takes 45 minutes. People are just frustrated. They’re really asking us to do better, so that’s what this motion is all about,” he said.

Fillmore wants staff to explore (prioritizing options that won’t cost more):

• Allowing temporary changes to parking and bus stop rules on major corridors during peak periods.
• Better signs and real-time communications with residents, which might include interactive maps and an app where HRM plugs in construction alerts.
• More construction work at night and on weekends.
• Options for using police “or other qualified personnel” to direct traffic at particularly difficult spots.
• Any out-of-the-box ideas that might help.

Right away, councillors noted a lot of complications with HRM directing police to help with construction-related traffic jams. And there’s also the cost.

The mayor’s suggestion around police slips into the operational side of police work, said Coun. Becky Kent (Dartmouth South – Woodside – Eastern Passage).

“We have to be very careful about whether or not there’s things being politicized, and council is delving into directing our police to take certain measures,” she said.

“They’re stretched to a point now that it’s challenging for the chiefs and their sergeants and their operational side to be everywhere they need to be,” said Kent, who sits on the police board where Halifax Regional Police recently tabled a budget without the usual ask for more positions.

“If Nova Scotia has some magic power that creates an opportunity for us to create special constables to do this, I can support that because that’s actually in the direction that we should be going.”

Night work works if it’s the right road, said Coun. Sam Austin (Dartmouth Centre).

He brought up the night work on Nantucket Avenue that’s wrapping up.

“It went very smooth and did not cost us, like, a premium; it was a roaring success, and I understand there were two other night projects we did this year that had similar results and very few complaints.”

But it can be extremely expensive, said Coun. Kathryn Morse (Halifax – Bedford Basin West).

“When I looked into nighttime work for a major corridor in my district a year or two ago, I was told that the nighttime work costs twice as much as daytime work,” she said.

“So maybe there are workarounds for that, but I am concerned about the implications for the budget if we start doing a lot of night work.”

Most councillors got behind exploring ideas to ease congestion, but Coun. Shawn Cleary (Halifax West Armdale) pointed out that HRM already does most of what’s in the mayor’s motion.

“A couple of reminders . . . that if you’re in traffic, you are traffic. So you’re not in congestion, you’re causing congestion,” Cleary said, adding that he has a problem when cyclists, pedestrians or especially buses are stuck in traffic for no good reason.

“If we can find ways to have traffic move better, especially prioritizing sustainable modes of transportation in that thinking, I’m all for it.”

When speaking to reporters during a break, Fillmore was asked why this motion needed to be made if HRM is already doing these things. He answered that HRM isn’t doing enough of it and it’s not co-ordinated well.

Speaking of co-ordination, it’s aggravating when there’s construction on a major corridor and also on several of the feeder streets, pointed out Coun. Trish Purdy (Cole Harbour – Preston – Westphal – Cherry Brook). She said police should absolutely intervene in major gridlock situations where a crucial location is blocked and reverberates through the city.

“It would be for those times like a couple weeks ago when the Robie Street ramp was out; it was gridlocked all the way to Cole Harbour, to Portland Street, from the MacKay bridge,” she said. “That’s not normal. That’s not OK.”

There’s hope that staff could be back with a report, council could vote on it and action could happen by the time construction season ramps up again in the spring, but Fillmore was more vague talking about a timeline for results.

“All I can say is we need to get this done as quickly as we can,” Fillmore said. “I think people have reached a breaking point, and . . . so I think it’s incumbent on the council and on the administration to move as quickly as we can.”