Vehicle Ban On Spring Garden Road ‘A Grand Experiment At The Merchants’ Expense,’ Says Shop Owner
HALIFAX-The businesses along Spring Garden Road in Halifax are witnessing major changes to their neighbourhood. In 2021, the city began a multi-million-dollar streetscaping project that widened the sidewalks and put wiring underneath the ground.
Starting July 4, Spring Garden will be playing host to an experiment that has become popular in other major city hubs: banning vehicles from the road.
Between 7 am and 8 pm, there will be no vehicular traffic, other than public transit, on Spring Garden from Queen Street to South Park Street. This is intended to be a year-long pilot project.
Sue Uteck, the Executive Director of Spring Garden Area Business Association, tweeted that businesses in the area have mixed opinions on this major change. She said the reaction ranges “from cautiously optimistic to downright dreading it.”
Kurt Burger would put himself in the latter category. Banning vehicles between 7 am and 8 pm will only hurt businesses, claims the owner of Jennifer’s of Nova Scotia. After all, he points out, we live in a society where people want to freely use their vehicles.
“It’s a grand experiment at the merchants’ expense, is what it’ll turn out to be,” predicts Bulger, who has done business on the road for 40 years.
“If they think the car is going anywhere, they’re kidding themselves. The internal combustion engine may be going the way of the dodo, but then we have the electric car. Our society is built around it.”
Bulger says walking to businesses on Spring Garden is easy enough for those who live downtown. But he says others in the HRM are already discouraged from coming to the area, due to the lack of parking.
“The other 400,000 people who don’t live on the peninsula anymore; believe me, I hear time after time, ‘I don’t come down here anymore because the parking is unbelievable, it’s crazy.’”
“Absolutely, we hear it all the time, every day.”
But Halifax’s District 7 Councillor Waye Mason disagrees with Bulger on the issue of parking. He says there are lots of underground spaces in the area where people can park their vehicles before going to a business on Spring Garden.
Mason also points out that, even before all the changes were made to Spring Garden, there weren’t many options to park directly on the street anyway.
“Nobody’s used to that on Spring Garden Road because there’s no stopping and parking on [the street] anyway. Even before the streetscaping, the only parking was a handful of spots…” said Mason.
The councillor also defended the transit-only pilot project beginning July 4, noting that vehicular traffic around Spring Garden has slowed busses, even making them fall behind schedule.
“Many buses go through Spring Garden Road. Spring Garden Road is the business centre because it’s had buses and, before that, trolleys going through there for 100 years.”
“As we move towards improving Halifax transit and, hopefully, towards bus-rapid transit, we’re trying to put more bus lanes and more bus priorities on the streets so the buses go faster and are on time.”
Mason also said this experiment isn’t being done in a vacuum. Similar rules have been used in other major cities around the world, especially in major shopping districts. In those cities, they have been proven successful.
“When you look around the world, to places like Princes Street in Edenborough to the High Street in Glasgow, to streets in Paris…they’ve been taking cars off of those roads in those key shopping areas while continuing to have transit. And it works very well,” said Mason.
In terms of the new street design, Bulger says it has made supply deliveries more difficult for businesses. Trucks now have to drop off their products at communal loading zones which, says Bulger, are often far away from their doorsteps.
“I have 256 people who supply my store from around the Maritime provinces and I would say a good 1/3 of them drop their orders off. They can’t get to my store anymore, because it’s so clogged up with other delivery trucks trying to get the job done,” claims Bulger.
“I pity the poor bastard who delivers beer on this street because he now has to lug his beer kegs (a long distance), said Bulger.
But Waye Mason says such loading zones are common in other city hubs around the world. He also said Halifax made these changes in consultation with the business community before streetscaping began.
“I wouldn’t put in a negative (light). There are loading zones and accessible parking hard up against Spring Garden Road and all three cross streets. There were no loading zones on Spring Garden Road in front of most of these businesses.”
“You look around the world the world at streets like this and, yes, you sometimes have to have a dolley and put your beer keg or your boxes and take it 10 to 20 to 30 metres to the store.”
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].