Many people using Halifax’s transit services this past weekend experienced longer commutes than usual, as bridge closures, ongoing construction and car crashes contributed to lengthy bus delays throughout the city.
With summer just around the corner, development projects and increasing service interruptions will force transit users to adjust their schedules accordingly when riding the city’s public transit.
Ray Mackenzie, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union 508 (ATU 508), said he expects construction projects will likely lead to more detours and gridlocked traffic this summer.
“I have no idea to predict what can happen,” he said, adding that these challenges are resulting in operators sometimes running up to 90 minutes behind schedule.
“It’s very frustrating for passengers and clients trying to get around. The traffic was gridlocked on both ways.”
Mackenzie, who was first hired as a transit operator 20 years ago, said one of Halifax Transit’s biggest issues is that the service remains short-staffed — and weekends are when they have the least capacity.
“I know (during) the weekend past, they were short up to 22 operators at each garage,” he explained. “If we were staffed up fully, we’d be able to have more standby operators ready to go when you have those delays.”
He estimates that Halifax Transit is currently short about 45 operators, and that’s not including what’s needed to respond to the next phase of Halifax’s Moving Forward Together Plan, which looks to increase the frequency of services. He said another 40 workers will be required to adequately implement the municipality’s vision for transit.
In addition, the service continues to grapple with retention issues.
“Operators are coming and not staying,” he said.
He said that Halifax’s bus routes are still not operating at full service since some routes were cut in February, including one that ran from the Woodside Ferry into the Cole Harbour area. He said resuming these routes would help speed up certain delays.
Mackenzie said an increasing normalization of split-shift schedules makes working as a Halifax Transit operator less attractive.
He said drivers are being forced to switch routes midday, resulting in workers ending their shifts on the opposite side of the city from where they started — leading to some employees spending more hours commuting back to their vehicle after their shift.
“It’s unpaid time and it’s on your own time. So, you’re doing a 13-hour day for eight hours pay and you’re travelling through the city on the buses yourself to get your car,” he said.
“There’s a lot of our split shifts like that. Our junior members are coming here and saying, ‘I’m not giving up four or five hours of my day to do that,’ and they’re leaving.”
Despite the hiring woes, Mackenzie said Halifax Transit is recruiting new workers, but current conditions are resulting in temporary terms.
“Thursday, we swore in a new training class. When we got the appointment for it, we had a class of 12. When we went to swear them in, there were eight. We lost four before we even got to swear them in,” he said.
“We got to start retaining in order to get that service up.”
Candidates for Halifax mayor race respond
Coun. Pam Lovelace, who recently announced that she will be running for mayor of Halifax in the fall, said that addressing the city’s transit issues is one of her main priorities.
“I am focused on looking on how we can create a traffic management system that takes into account all of these factors, such as the bridge closure, Barrington Street closures, looking at the fact that we need to add more routes,” she said during an interview with Global News on Tuesday.
“So that we have a more consistent approach. Not just during the week, but on the weekends as well.”
Lovelace said due to Halifax’s limited transportation network, several ongoing events combined with service interruptions can easily result in a gridlock situation downtown — which poses a safety risk for those sitting in traffic.
“It was chaos, absolute chaos on the weekend,” she said.
“It could’ve been a major crisis had there been some kind of emergency that took place.”
She said she hopes to recruit individuals from all levels of government to identify solutions to improve Halifax’s ability to expand its transit system while retaining operators along the way.
“My focus is looking at ways that we can address better traffic management in the downtown area,” she said, adding that introducing dedicated downtown buses could be one way of mitigating the problem.
Coun. Waye Mason, who represents the city’s downtown area, also threw his hat in the ring for the city’s mayoral election earlier this week. Following his announcement on Monday, he also discussed some of the city’s traffic woes.
“We’ve got to double down on the stuff that’s happening to make intersections and roads move more smoothly,” he said.
“The big thing is bus, ferry and rapid transit … we need to see significant investment in that.”
Mason added that he expects Halifax to receive “big help” with its transit challenges from a newfound Joint Regional Transportation Agency (JRTA) that’s been set up by the provincial government.
According to its website, the JRTA is a provincial Crown corporation tasked with strategic transportation planning for Halifax and nearby areas.
“The plan will establish a coordinated long-term vision for a regional transportation system that makes sustainable growth and development possible and improves the safe and efficient movement of people and goods into, out of, and throughout Halifax and surrounding communities,” the website reads.
Mason said the agency will be releasing a report in the fall that will assist the municipality with transit development.
“That’s going to be a big piece of putting a framework in place that Halifax, the province, and the feds can work together to address,” he said.
More interruptions to come
For the time being, Mackenzie said he expects the challenges to persist.
He said the next phase of the ongoing development on Cogswell Street will force a closure in the Scotia Square area between Cogswell Street and Duke Street on June 17 — and is expected to provide significant interruptions.
“We are going to be on a major detour around that and there’s no prediction of how bad it’s going to be until it happens,” he said.
According to a Halifax Transit release, the temporary relocation of the Scotia Square terminal will impact 30 routes throughout the city.
“Beginning Monday, June 17, 2024, until further notice, Scotia Square Terminal will be closing to accommodate the construction and street closures for the next phase of the Cogswell District Project,” the announcement said.
“This closure requires the temporary relocation of the four bays located at Scotia Square Terminal.”
The municipality has yet to release information on how long these changes will be in place.
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