Halifax gets serious about fixing past mistakes

I want to say thank you to the folks who read my reporting and write in with what I got wrong or may have missed. I’m not talking about the hateful one-liners, but the people like an engineer named Ron who wrote to me about the traffic problems we are having in the HRM, in response to my article Did Halifax just blow $113 million?

He believed, like many readers seem to, that I want to do away with cars altogether in Halifax. But just to be clear here, this is not my intention. What I do want is a city built in such a way that if I lose access to a car (which happened over the weekend), I can still safely and freely move throughout the city. I cannot do that without a car, which means for the next few weeks me and my family get to eat rice and beans so we can pay to get our car fixed.

Anyway, Ron’s point was that if a pedestrian gets hit by a car, it is probably their fault for putting themselves at risk. But the way in which he described it made me understand how my time at sea and learning naval collision avoidance regulations fundamnetally shape how I see collision risk on our roads. One would assume that since the ocean is a really big place, ships wouldn’t hit each other very often, but that’s not true. It got to be so much of an issue that there are now Rules of the Road that govern ship interactions at sea. The Canadian Navy spends a lot of time teaching its officers those rules. I still have some of them memorized almost 20 years after first learning them. The navy also spends a lot of time teaching its officers something called Bridge Resource Managment, which analyzes why ships crashed in the past and how that can be avoided in the future. The episode Danger: Rocks Ahead! of the Cautionary Tales podcast by Tim Harford, which explains how the Torrey Canyon oil spill happened, is a very approachable example of this navy way of thinking.  

There are two piece of relevant context from my naval training and how I think about roads. The first is that every collision is the end result of a cascading series of failures that are not limited to one party in a collision. The second piece of context is that since that’s true, there is not a fault/not-at-fault binary like there is in automotive collisions. When ships crash, insurance adjusters lay 100% of the blame on all parties involved, weighted for how much each party’s specific failures are responsible for causing the collision. I’d like to think I’m pretty good a doing this type of risk analysis, having been trained in it extensively, and I’ve had a chance to experience cascading failures first hand.

Anyways, the pedestrians of the sea are sailing vessels, and in those Rules of the Road, as in the Motor Vehicle Act, they are responsible for keeping out of the way of larger vessels. Those rules also say if a collision can't be avoided due to the wind, it’s the responsibility of the vessel with the motor to move. And since motorized ships need to be able to avoid a sailing vessel at all times, the rules also say that motor vessels need to be travelling at a speed safe enough to avoid sailing vessels in the prevailing conditions.

Where I agreed with Ron is that like sailing vessels, pedestrians have the responsibility for their own safety 100%. Meaning as much as possible they should avoid putting themselves in dangerous situations. But where I disagreed with Ron is who is responsible for creating those unsafe situations in the first place. Because creating that unsafe condition (to me) is only about 10% the pedestrian’s fault (i.e. wearing a hoodie, stepping off without looking, looking at their phone, etc). In most collisions, I put about 40% on the driver (driving too fast for the prevailing conditions, not maintaining a proper lookout at all times by sight and by radar, etc). And I put about 50% of the blame on the engineers who designed prevailing conditions that encourage drivers to travel at unsafe speeds on roads wide enough where it feels relatively comfortable to take glances at a phone.

And then if my assignment of responsibility is accurate, the real issue in the HRM is that we are focusing almost 100% of our municipal resources on trying to fix something that's only about 10% of the root cause responsible for causing unsafe streets. And at the same time, compounding the issue, is that the city keeps investing in the thing that's causing 50% of the issue.

As it turns out, Ron used to be a sailor too, and when written out like that, both Ron and I agreed completely. Who says civility on the internet is dead? Thanks as always for reading. And double thanks to those of you who write in challenging my thinking.   

Last week’s TL;DR

RIP Suburbs 1955-2025? 

Good Governance makes a comeback in HRM.

Mancini hates Parks.

What happened last week

Monday, Feb 12

There was a special Halifax and West Community Council because the city absolutely refuses to let its strategic plans affect municipal decision making. This committee approved a development agreement to relocate the Canadian Tire gas station at Bayers Road and Connaught Avenue. This happened because the city just can’t see how much it centers the automobile in all of its planning. Even though there is enough room to fit a priority transit corridor on Bayers Road right now, the city is choosing to subsidize motorists by buying up real estate to widen roads to accommodate more motorist traffic. This in turn means the gas station will need to be moved, and because the gas station is moving, staff needed to consider the Regional Centre Municipal Planning Strategy in a new development agreement for the new location.

Councillor Kathrine Morse asked what the point of widening the road for transit was and how this property fit into the city’s larger transportation planning, but that information is apparently not information councillors need to make a decision on whether or not this gas station redevelopment is in line with the city’s transportation priorities. Councillor Patty Cuttell wanted to know if the gas station was going to put EV chargers in (it isn’t). Walk and Roll Halifax brought up concerns with pedestrian safety. City staff don’t care about evidence, so they believe that two driveways instead of four driveways makes things safer for pedestrians. While that’s true, that’s also like saying it’s safer to be shot at by two people instead of four. Staff helpfully clarified that even though municipal plans say pedestrian safety is a priority, that priority does not impact the development agreement in any meaningful way, so there’s nothing we can do. Councillors could have not allowed the gas station to be rebuilt, in line with all of their strategic plans. Instead, councillors approved a development that is not really in line with any of their strategic plans, but does conform with the local geographic municipal planning strategy. Pretty neat stuff.

Tuesday, Feb 13: Budget; Planning and Development and Council

Halifax’s Department of Planning and Development presented their budget and they’re starting to get serious about correcting the mistakes of suburban development. They are looking to staff up on engineers specifically in the area of transportation planning. They’re also looking to staff up the team who will plan what today’s suburbs will look like in the future. This is the gritty functional planning stuff that’s missing from the Integrated Mobility Plan, and what has made the IMP relatively toothless since implementation. This is a very slow-moving good-news story that will actually feel like a good-news story next budget year if the suburb planning goes according to the planned plan. The full story can be found here:

Then at 6pm council met and considered an appeal for Skye Halifax. You may remember late last year this tower was shot down at the Design Review Committee. But the developers have appealed that rejection. This was a good decision on their part as councillors decided to give this development the go ahead. The Design Review Committee continues to make the case that it should be disbanded.

Wednesday, Feb. 14: Budget day; Parks and Rec

Happy Valentine’s Day—the Parks and Recreation Department asked for and got some presents. Parks’ budget had a nice little surprise; apparently paying people a living wage makes them do better work. The department has some landscaping contracts out under the city’s new living-wage policy, and some landscaping projects under the old pay-people-like-shit policy. As it turns out, the people who get paid more generate far fewer complaints about poor-quality work. Coming this summer, the city is also expecting to be able to hit every illegally parked car across the whole HRM every day. This should see some increased revenue for city coffers. You can read my meeting recap here:

Thursday, Feb. 15

Special Events Advisory Committee was cancelled.

Community Planning and Economic Development Standing Committee met and updated their five-year plan—People. Planet, Prosperity: Halifax’s Inclusive Economic Strategy—a couple years early, in order to better incorporate related strategic plans. And I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but good governance seems to be making a genuine comeback in the HRM. They also started formally planning to replace Centennial Pool. You can read by recap here:

The Active Transportation Advisory Committee met and took care of some deferred business. Poor showing by this committee; one of its members needed a five-minute explanation about what a protected bike lane is.

The Youth Advisory Committee met to update their work plan and talk about standards for residential occupancies. This meeting was not televised.

Friday, Feb 16

I spent it reading PDFs, so you didn’t have to.

What’s happening this week

Monday, Feb 19

What some provinces call Family Day, we in Nova Scotia marked as the Heritage Day holiday—this year in honour of William Hall, a Nova Scotian whose distinguished career in the British Navy in the mid-1800s went sadly under-recognized in this province until after his death in 1904.

Tuesday, Feb. 20

Council day was not required so it was cancelled.

Harbour East-Marine Drive, North West Community Council and Halifax and West Community Council will team up to have a super meeting. This super meeting is to give first reading to legislation that will bring bonus zoning to the suburbs. Bonus zoning, as a reminder, is when developers pay extra for permission to break development rules, and that extra money goes towards a public good. This meeting should be relatively quick as it’s first reading of an administrative change that is already happening elsewhere in the city.

Wednesday, Feb. 21

Audit and Finance Committee will be meeting to write off under $20,000 in uncollectable debt due to bad/old/non-existent PIDs or, in one case, the HRM got land from someone, but they don’t know who, and that person owed $6,008.48. They’ll also get the third quarter financial report, and the city has a surplus of $1.1 million. This is due to the price of diesel going down, and the HRM being understaffed is saving on labour costs. 

Thursday, Feb. 22

The Transportation Standing Committee will be meeting and they will get an update from Halifax Transit. Transit saw ridership increase again to 7.2 million trips for Halifax’s 500,000 residents, which is about 14 trips per resident of the HRM per year. Halifax has almost bounced back to pre-pandemic ridership levels, but is still about 23 million riders shy of Halifax’s peak transit era. In the 1930s, Halifax’s public transit provided 9 million trips for 60,000 people (150 trips per person per year) and when the war kicked off the city’s population boomed to 120,000 people who took 31 million trips on transit (258 trips per person per year). Because the city doesn’t really do transportation planning for anyone other than drivers, the city has created bus stop/bike lane combos (check Hollis Street for example) that put blind people in danger of being hit by bike riders. The Transportation Standing Committee might get a report on how to fix this issue. If this report does get written, it will be a waste of time and money as it will join a long list of other reports and planning documents like the Strategic Road Safety Framework and Integrated Mobility Plan which have had zero tangible impact on the Department of Public Works’ planning processes because the DPW is fundamentally not interested in planning non-automotive transportation infrastructure for the HRM.

The Regional Centre Community Council has been cancelled.

Friday

I’ll be writing the next edition of this newsletter. If you want a copy, that one will be for Insiders only. Get your copy by signing up here.

Gov’t Tendies

New this week

The city is looking for some landscaping services. These contractors will have to be paid a living wage, so we likely won’t be complaining about their work.

The HRM is looking for a contractor to install some new human resources software the city will be using.

The Department of Public Works wants to find out how bad our road network is, so they’re looking for someone to come measure the surface distress of our roads. This is going to be very fascinating when it comes back. The DPW hasn’t updated its automotive planning assumptions in a few decades, so they are assuming roads will continue to degrade at the same rate as they have in the past. However, due to a combo of the DPW’s car-centric planning, Halifax’s growth, and car manufacturers using their monopoly to restrict the car market to larger, heavier more profitable cars, our roads are likely degrading faster than they used to. This isn’t that big of an issue on its own, but earlier this year the DPW asked for permission to let our streets degrade to 50% over the next decade, instead of keeping them at 60% in an effort to save money on upkeep costs. I suspect this report will find our roads are degrading faster than we expect and this deferred maintenance request will end up being the death knell of our automotive infrastructure. Alternatively, if we decide to try and maintain a heavily degraded and unsustainable transportation network, in a few years time that will be the death of Halifax’s growth.

Parks wants wooden poles removed and replaced.

The city is looking for someone who can fix electric motors.

The city is looking for a contractor to install security systems in HRM buildings.

Prospect Road Community Centre needs some fitness equipment. Hopefully, they have no issue fit’n’ess new equipment in their gym. 

The city needs a storage unit to hold stuff in between civic events.

See ya later

The city’s car fleet, which is causing climate change, will get some adaptation to said changed climate. So the city’s no longer looking for a car AC mechanic.

City’s no longer looking to hire someone to beef up parking enforcement for spring street cleaning. This tender was cleaned up last week.

The city wanted an all-wheel-drive SUV with rotary gear shift, it found it, as this tender is gone.

Did you give up your Christmas tree? The city is no longer looking for an evergreen supplier for the next four years. BYOCrane for a December installation. 

City rinks will get new paint. And I’ll stop seeing the white paint in my normally blue creases when I play because this tender is gone.

Still kickin’

You know when you get on the ferry at Alderney Landing, when you are looking over at Halifax, to your left you can see that jetty sticking out into the harbour by the waterfront park? That jetty still needs to be replaced.

The city still needs a hydraulic lift to work on buses.

Roaches Pond Ball Diamond’s parking lot will get repaved. So too will the adjacent trails. Eventually, this tender is still open. 

The road in front of Fire Station #2 on University Avenue still needs repaving.

The city still needs janitors for a whole slew of places. Why we tender out to Imperial Cleaners instead of bringing these people inhouse and treating them well is beyond me.

Windmill Road is still likely going to get a functional plan.

Eastern Shore still needs a new Zamboni, it needs to be electric, it still does not need to be Zamboni brand.

The city still needs a polyethylene boat for Search and Rescue.

The city is still looking for preventative maintenance for various municipal septic systems, mainly in East Preston and Fall River.

The Almon Street Bike lane is finally going out for tender, maybe, the city is still looking for bids. This integral part of “AAA” “infrastructure” is quite good in some parts and bullshit sharrows in other parts.

In order to get federal money for the HRM’s planned active transportation infrastructure, we need “qualified project management for the duration of the project.” Either this is a dumb stipulation on federal funding so the city doesn’t want to permanently invest in an AT project manager, or the city isn’t going to do AT projects after this federal money is done. Since the HRM is bringing project managers in-house to save money on AT projects and since the feds suck at handing out infrastructure money, I suspect it’s the former. But we’ll have to wait and see as this is still open for bids.

The city’s firefighters still need boots.

The city is still looking to make its fire stations more efficient and is looking to hire a consultant to see about the feasibility of Deep Energy Retrofits.

The Woodside ferry terminal still needs its dolphins refurbished. What is a dolphin you ask? According to Wikipedia it is a group of pilings arrayed together to serve variously as a:  protective hardpoint along a dock, in a waterway or along a shore; means or point of stabilization of a dock, bridge or similar structure; as a mooring point; and as a base for navigational aids.

The city is still looking to buy some fancy engineering desks.

The city is still looking for tow and impound services for parking enforcement.

The city still wants to make a test for vehicle for hire drivers (taxis and Ubers).

The city is still looking for someone to repair and replace lights in HRM parks.

The city is still looking for Access-A-Bus busses.

The city still wants to build that new fire HQ in Bedford and is looking for bids.

And finally, the city is still looking to fill out a list of pre-qualified vendors it can call on for emergency road repairs for when the climate emergency comes to Nova Scotia, like it did with last year’s fires, floods and hurricanes. This feels like something we should consider bringing in-house instead of contracting out, due to the plethora of employment opportunities the climate emergency will provide as it repeatedly destroys our infrastructure in the decades and generations to come. Just a note, this bid will likely stay open, and on this newsletter, until September. I suspect we’ll grow to find it annoying, and then miss the usual ending to this newsletter when it’s gone.

That’s it! Since you made it to the end, I’ve got to ask:

Thanks again to our Coast Insider members for helping to make our City Hall coverage possible.