East Preston gets funding to study active transportation needs

A provincial government investment of $11,500 will help increase active transportation in East Preston, N.S., by providing residents the opportunity to study the issue themselves.

READ MORE: Halifax council moves forward with integrated mobility plan

The East Preston Day Care and Family Resource Centre will use the funds to develop an active transportation and transit plan for the community situated on the outskirts of Dartmouth.

“We are going to be going forward and looking for solutions to help us have better transportation,” explained the centre’s executive director, Trina Fraser.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We are going to be going forward and looking for solutions to help us have better transportation," explained the centre's executive director, Trina Fraser.

The Preston community is home to a few thousand residents, many of whom Fraser said are limited in their ability to travel in and around the area.

Their upcoming study will help them determine how to best increase the ability of residents to get to places they’ve had trouble reaching, and/or returning from in the past.

“Young people, if they want to go to a movie they have to go to town, they have no transportation to get there,” she explained. “There’s always someone that’s got to pick up a group of children, bring them to the movie, bring them home.”

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“Even for sports and recreation we most times have to go outside of our community.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Even for sports and recreation we most times have to go outside of our community."

READ MORE: Halifax transportation advocates applaud mobility report, want stricter timelines

East Preston Day Care Board Member Mike Brownlow believes the benefits of increasing transportation will be widespread.

“We’ve tried a couple times to hire people who live not in the community but they’re not able to get here because of transportation,” he explained. “It’ll allow people from the surrounding communities to come out here and work here.”

The funding is part of the province’s sustainable transportation grant program Connect2.

All of its projects are expected to be completed by April 2019.

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