Halifax on the move

Frustrating, calming, complicated, and tough – commutes in Halifax can range from pleasant to arduous. We take a closer look at how people are getting around town.

Bus it

By: Vincenzo Ravina

In recent years, more and more people have had to work on Sundays with the advent of Sunday shopping, but the bus service has hardly been adjusted to meet these needs.

To get to work, Cox takes the Route 1 bus from the intersection at Oxford Street and Quinpool Road to the Dartmouth bridge terminal, then walks to Alderney Drive.

The commute takes him about 45 minutes. To get to work on time on Sundays, he’d need an earlier bus than the 6:40 a.m.

“I recognize that they are limited by the number of crew that they have,” Cox says. But there are a lot of people we need to get to work early and don’t have the benefit of a car.

“It definitely can make things difficult, especially in the security division.”

Cox’s return trips on Saturday nights don’t thrill him, either.

He has to “run into a lot of gentlemen and ladies who are drunk and they are yelling. And at that point, after a 12-hour shift, you’re pretty fatigued and your head is just pounding. It doesn’t exactly make things easy. I have to carry a bottle of Advil on me constantly.”

He also says bus drivers have been leaving five minutes earlier than scheduled, recently.

“If you don’t know the schedule and you don’t know the city … it can be a definite confusion. Once you get the hang of the schedule, it’s not so bad, but just to be able to get a basic understanding, it takes time.”

Sail it

By: Jonathan Charlton

After seven years of four round-trips per week, Garry Markle still enjoys riding the ferry.

Markle, 46, commutes from his home near the Dartmouth Commons to NASCAD University in downtown Halifax where he teaches fashion.

“There’s something beautiful about being out on the harbour, first of all. It’s not like being on a bus where you’re stuck in traffic. It’s not as congested. Usually, the times I take the ferry there’s very few people. Even when there are more people I find that people are a lot more polite, kind to each other.”

Of all the times he’s taken the ferry, he only remembers one bad experience.

“The worst for me was probably the night where this drunk guy started urinating on the upper deck.”  Markle alerted the ferry staff that they needed a cleanup.

He wishes the ferries could keep their 15-minute schedule at peak times all year. Every three years, a ferry has to be taken out of service for maintenance, which can take up to four months. When that happens, the others make their trips less often.

“That half hour – it can make a huge difference. Fifteen minutes, you miss one ferry, you’re on the next one … you don’t even have to phone to say you’re going to be late.”

Drive it

By: James Whitehead

Lorna Ash commutes 45 kilometres every day from Ingramport in St. Margret’s Bay to Gottingen Street in downtown Halifax.

She has tried several forms of transportation, driving being her least favorite.

If there’s no traffic she can get to her job as the Webmaster for the military’s Personal Support Services in 45 minutes. She has to leave her house by 7 a.m. to beat the rush of vehicles. If she leaves even five minutes late, her drive is extended to an hour and 15 minutes.

“Then it’s just sitting and waiting and inching forward,” she said.

There’s only a couple of routes into Halifax from her area and choosing the wrong one could be the difference between getting to work on time and being late.

She tried taking the Armview Rotarty but said it was nightmarish during rush hour traffic. So she switched to Highway 102, affectionately called the Bi-Hi by commuters.

The problem, she says, is that there are just too many cars on the road at peak drive times. Everywhere she looks, there is only one person per car.

Ash also says the highways coming into Halifax are poorly planned.  With so many cars, the drive is hazardous.

Ash’s carpool was even rear-ended once on the way into the city. They were coming off Highway 103 and met up with a long line of traffic, forcing them to slow down. The driver behind them slammed into them twice.

“I think his foot got confused between the brake and the gas,” she said. “But he just wasn’t paying attention.”

She has since given up trying to drive into work, even by carpool. Now she takes the MetroX bus. She still has to get up early to beat the traffic, but the seats are more comfortable, the fare is only $3.25 and she doesn’t have to worry about traffic anymore.

“At least I know that if I get rear-ended now the bus is going to win.”

But the traffic issue still remains. Ash’s suggestion is for commuters to leave their cars at home and find another way into work.

“There isn’t room to put in a carpool lane,” she said. “I think the only way to do it is to convince people to take alternate means of transport, it costs less and it’s way more convenient.”

Walk it

By: Meggan Desmond

Life in the city can be hectic. But 27-year-old Mark Lasanowski wants to slow things down,  by walking.

Lasanowski works as an interviewer for Statistics Canada. His commute from his home near Windsor Street to his work on Brunswick Street is roughly 15 minutes, a walk which he does almost every day.

When he doesn’t walk to work, he rides his bike.

Lasanowski loves walking because it slows down the general pace of life. He enjoys being able to stop and admire the scenery.

“When I’m walking, my camera is always with me so if I see something and I want to take a picture of it, I stop and I take a picture of it.”

Photography isn’t the only reason he loves walking. He says that walking allows him to have more fun for less cash.

“I love walking more than going to a club or bar,” Lasanowski says.

But sometimes, walking isn’t fun for Lasanowski.

His daily walk to work becomes a game of chance when he approaches the six-point intersection at the corner or Cogswell Street and North Park Street.

He says that the pedestrian signals never line up correctly with the lights. He feels like he is always crossing against the lights.

Whether you’re walking for business or pleasure, Lasanowski has a few words of advice for all pedestrians.

Pedestrians need to be attentive to cars. They may have the right-of-way but when person meets car, it doesn’t matter who has the right-of-way, says Lasanowski.

“We talk about defensive driving, but you need to be a defensive pedestrian as well.”

Bike it

By: Monika Warzecha

Douglas Smith has had a few close encounters, but luckily he’s never been hit by a car.

“They have come close enough beside me where I’ve been able to touch the car with my handlebars,” he says. “There’s been contact, but nothing that has caused me to crash.”

A biology student at Dalhousie University, Smith bikes to class, an 11-kilometre commute that takes him roughly 25 minutes.

The journey starts at Kearney Lake Road and Parkland Drive to the university’s Marion McCain Arts and Science Building on University Avenue.

The worst part of his commute stretches from Lacewood Drive to Bayers Road where the traffic is heaviest. The roads are narrow and Smith finds there isn’t enough room for him the share the lane with a car.

“They think they own the road and will try to squeeze by you as close to you as they can. It’s a little bit frustrating.”

Smith hopes the city will build more bike lanes, especially near the Fairview overpass off the Bedford Highway, where speeding motorists can make the route unnerving for cyclists.

According to the City of Halifax, there are roughly 50 kilometres of on-road bike lanes in HRM. The City’s Active Transportation Plan, published in 2006, expects to build 17 kilometres of new bikes lanes by 2026.

Where Bayers Road merges with Highway 102 is similarly daunting largely because of an off-ramp. Though the speed limit is 50 km/h like it is everywhere else in the city, Smith finds the cars travel well above the speed limit. This makes merging with the traffic that much more difficult.

Smith dons extra gear for winter commutes.

He wears waterproof pants and a waterproof jacket “because there’s always spray coming off the road, whether it’s raining or not.”

Smith says the commute helps him stay fit in winter. And an alternative to cycling would just take more time and money.

“It’s far, far cheaper than owning a car and putting fuel in a car,” he says, “(And) it’s half the amount of time it would take on a bus to and from school, even in the peak times of the day.”