Halifax Regional Council votes against hiking airport bus fee

Halifax Regional Council have voted against a staff recommendation that would have raised the price of the airport bus service to $6.00.

Route 320 or the MetroX Airport-Fall River Express is currently $4.25.

Steve Streatch, councillor for Waverly-Fall River-Musquodoboit Valley, introduced the motion at Tuesday’s Halifax Regional Council meeting but said he “vehemently disagreed’ with it.

“I can tell you clearly that the residents in Fall River do not support this,” he told council, saying residents in his district were reliant on the service.

Council debated whether they could implement a system that would increase the price for individuals taking the service to the airport.

Staff replied that it would require drivers to police who is going where. Councillors ultimately couldn’t come to an agreement on how to implement a fee-based honour system.

Instead, Streatch suggested an alternative proposed by municipal staff: keeping all MetroX routes in Halifax at the price of $4.25.

2:02 Bus fare increase go into effect in Halifax

The motion to increase the fee was voted down unanimously by council. The motion to keep the status quo also received unanimous support.

Municipal staff said that with council’s vote there no plans to look at increasing Route 320’s fee in the near future.