Halifax Transit needs major rehaul, says It's More Than Buses group

When it comes to describing what's wrong with Halifax Transit, Scott Edgar doesn't mince words. "It's broken," he told CBC Radio's Mainstreet.

Edgar is a member of the advocacy group It's More Than Buses. He's also a professor of philosophy at St. Mary's University.

He spent most of Tuesday at Halifax Regional Council, where councillors began discussing the "Moving Forward Together" plan — a massive overhaul of the transit network.

Regional council approved the plan in principle, but it'll be months before any changes can proceed because amendments are being proposed.

Edgar said the transit system needs big changes. 

"Halifax Transit has been spending more and more money over the past few years on its system and yet we've seen ridership remain more or less stagnant, if not decline slightly. That is not the kind of efficient use of transportation spending that we want to see."

The 190-page plan suggests adding new routes, deleting under-used or redundant ones and making other improvements such as making transfers easier.

'Built into the DNA of our city'

Edgar said it's extremely important that Halifax Transit get it right when it revamps the transit system.

"I think public transit is something that is built into the DNA of our city and our region and it's built into the DNA of how the region is going to grow for the next several decades. So I think that getting a good public transit system is something that really affects everybody."

Edgar said in their discussions of the transit plan, some councillors were only concerned about bus routes that affect their particular district. While he said that's understandable, he thinks it's more important to take a wider view in order to get all the changes right.

"But Councillor Waye Mason at the beginning of the morning suggested that instead of making amendments to change the plan, that council instead pass motions to direct Halifax Transit staff to produce reports on the kinds of amendments that councillors wanted to make," he said. 

"It's a really, really huge puzzle to put together a functioning transit system. If you make one change in one part of the plan, you might not realize the unintended consequences that has in terms of costs but also in terms of operation of other parts of the system. So, it's really important to make sure that instead of making haphazard changes here and there, that staff has a chance to look at the big picture."

More transfers, fewer direct routes

Edgar said whatever changes end up in the final plan, something that has to happen is to make sure that people have more choices of routes and transferring needs to be easier.

Instead of focusing on giving people direct routes from home to downtown, he thinks a transfer-heavy system would be better. That way travellers "have the option of going to way more places so that you don't always have to go to Scotia Square."

But Edgar said in order for that kind of system to work, buses must be much more frequent. "The bus has to come every ten minutes."

Edgar said the way the system works now with some buses only coming every 45 minutes to an hour, it makes using public transit impossible for many people.

"If you need to get to your daycare to pick your kids up, a transfer means the bus is not an option for you. But in a system where the bus comes every ten minutes, a transfer means instead of waiting on the curb for an hour, it means now you have options of different places you can go on different routes."

Edgar said he's cautiously optimistic about plans. 

Now that the plan has been approved in principle, transit staff will take a more detailed look at the proposed amendments.