Spring Garden Business Owner Not Happy, But Staying Optimistic As Street Goes Transit-Only
HALIFAX–Not everyone is happy with recent traffic changes on Spring Garden Road.
As of Monday morning, the street is only open to bus and foot traffic on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The changes will be in effect for one year, as part of a pilot project aimed at making transit more reliable and the street more walkable.
One Spring Garden business owner says the changes are “an experiment at [his] expense”
Kurt Bulger, co-owner of Jennifer’s of Nova Scotia, says he worries the change will keep people living outside the peninsula, who drive most places, from visiting.
“[The city is] still excluding [thousands of] people that live off the peninsula and turning them into second-class citizens in their own city,” Bulger says.
Despite that, Bulger says he’s hopeful things will turn out okay.
“I have to be optimistic that, in the long run… people in the rest of Halifax will continue to come down and support us,” he said.
Just before the city put the new traffic rules in place, Sue Uteck, the executive director of Spring Garden Area Business Association, told Huddle businesses in the area had mixed opinions on the change. She said the reaction ranged “from cautiously optimistic to downright dreading it.”
Those mixed feelings aside, Uteck said one of the biggest frustrations for business owners is the fact that they don’t feel the city listens to their concerns.
“HRM is terrible at communication,” Uteck said.
RELATED: Spring Garden Business Owner Calls Transit-Only Pilot Project ‘Lies And Malarkey’
Bulger agrees with Uteck. He took his concerns to Councillor Waye Mason, who represents the downtown core, but says he didn’t feel heard.
“[Mason] did say at one point ‘if you go bankrupt, there’s more people that will take your place,'” Bulger says.
Jennifer’s of Nova Scotia has been selling locally crafted giftware in the city for 42 years; it has been on Spring Garden Road for 40 years.
Halifax’s first transit-priority street will be assessed at the six-month mark of the pilot, and again when the pilot wraps up in one year.
“Maybe this experiment will turn out right, maybe it won’t,” Bulger says. “I’m not happy about it, but at the same time, I have to try to be positive about it.”
Waye Mason did not reply to interview request by our publication deadline. However, in an interview with Huddle in late June, Mason defended the transit-only pilot project.
Mason said vehicle 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,” Mason said.
“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,” he said.
Anastasia Payne is a reporter with CKHZ 103.5 in Halifax, a Huddle content partner.
With files from Derek Montegue and Trevor Nichols.