Transportation plan has Halifax counting cars
11.07.2007 14:16
Shopping
- Source: cbc.ca
Commuters making their way from the suburbs of Halifax can expect to be under close watch. For the first time, the Halifax Regional Municipality has hired eight traffic counters to gather data about transportation habits. Until now, the municipality has had to rely on reports from Statistics Canada for a picture of how people get to work. But officials hope their own detailed information will ultimately help them reduce traffic congestion. So for the next month, the counters will watch people as they drive onto the peninsula, but will also look for people walking, cycling or riding the bus. Most importantly, they will be looking for people driving alone. "Whether or not people should be doing that or not is their choice, and we hope to just influence that choice with some of the measures that we take over the next few years," said Dave McCusker, the municipality's manager of transportation planning. McCusker also wants to avoid another Chebucto Road scenario. The municipality wants to widen the busy route into downtown, which means buying property from several homeowners. "Ultimately, what we're trying to accomplish is to avoid having to do any major expansions to our roadway network," McCusker said. "Those are extremely costly and they're disruptive to existing neighbourhoods." McCusker is reluctant to discuss car pooling or any other measures to reduce traffic, saying those kinds of decisions will be made once all the data is in.
| 
Add comment