{"id":1141,"date":"2009-11-12T09:30:24","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T13:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingatlantic.ca\/?p=1141"},"modified":"2013-01-21T04:51:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T08:51:31","slug":"council-votes-to-receive-transit-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/11\/12\/council-votes-to-receive-transit-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Council votes to &#8220;receive&#8221; transit plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2593\/4096328491_e02621e48a_b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"436\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>HALIFAX<\/strong> &#8211; The Metro Transit Strategic Plan \u2013 yes,<em> <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/10\/28\/paying-the-price-for-public-transit\/\">that<\/a><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/10\/28\/paying-the-price-for-public-transit\/\"> strategic plan<\/a> \u2013 was \u201creceived\u201d by Halifax Regional Council on Tuesday, but the reception was far from a warm one.<\/p>\n<p>Councillors debated the plan \u2013 an independent report commissioned by city hall in 2008 with a $285,000 price tag \u2013 for over two hours on Tuesday, before finally <a href=\"http:\/\/thechronicleherald.ca\/Metro\/1152103.html\">voting to \u201creceive\u201d the plan<\/a>. Receiving the plan means: staff can now seriously get down to work, looking at the various recommendations and figuring out ways and costs of implementing those recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>It also means council is in no way \u2013 financially, politically, spiritually \u2013 required to take any action once staff returns with that information this coming January. Nor are they bound to the recommendations contained in the report whatsoever.<\/p>\n<p>The debate was a lively one, kicking off with downtown Councillor Dawn Sloane\u2019s lament that a <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/11\/05\/a-downtown-shuttle-named-desire\/\">free downtown shuttle<\/a> was not included in the Strategic Plan. You\u2019ll recall that such a shuttle service \u2013 providing free rides across the completely walkable, minuscule Halifax downtown area \u2013 was advocated by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.halifax.ca\/capitaldistrict\/AboutHRMbyDESIGN.html\">HRMbyDesign<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Then came Councillor Barry Dalrymple (Waverley-Fall River-Beaverbank) making the perfectly (politically) logical argument that Metro Transit doesn\u2019t even service his constituency, so why should he etc etc etc. He also made a quip about one time when he and his sons drove by five busses on the same route with 2 people or less on them. Where was this route? Nobody seemed to know. His exact words: \u201cI won\u2019t mention the route, but&#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The talking past each other continued for two hours (Watts: \u201cWhat about LRT?\u201d Staff: \u201cDo you know how expensive that is? A bunch!\u201d McCluskey: \u201cI sure get a lot of fumes from busses at my place!\u201d Staff: \u201c?\u201d Karsten: \u201cWhy won\u2019t anybody accept my amendments!?!\u201d Blumenthal: \u201cWhat about the olds!\u201d Etc.) \u00a0before finally coming to a vote.<\/p>\n<p>Then! Councillor Bill Karsten (Portland-East Woodlawn) tabled a motion to accept the service standards (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.halifax.ca\/metrotransit\/ssi\/documents\/5yearStrategicOperationsPlan.pdf\">page 47<\/a> for you transit junkies) put forward in the Strategic Plan, giving staff even more freedom to start implementing changes to the transit system.<\/p>\n<p>Then we broke for lunch. I had a roast beef sandwich at <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.ca\/maps\/place?oe=utf-8&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=As+You+Like+It+Halifax&amp;fb=1&amp;gl=ca&amp;hq=As+You+Like+It&amp;hnear=Halifax&amp;cid=7723373831914523674\">As You Like It<\/a>. It was delightful, and very reasonably priced.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, a surprisingly productive day at City Hall. Sure, it doesn\u2019t actually guarantee anything other than a lively (read: excruciating) debate in January. But it at least moved the Strategic Plan, which aims to make Halifax a pedestrian- and transit user-friendly city, one step closer to reality.<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/bigworld.lawrenceplug.com\/\">Lawrence Plug<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HALIFAX &#8211; The Metro Transit Strategic Plan \u2013 yes, that strategic plan \u2013 was \u201creceived\u201d by Halifax Regional Council on Tuesday, but the reception was far from a warm one. Councillors debated the plan \u2013 an independent report commissioned by city hall in 2008 with a $285,000 price tag \u2013 for over two hours on<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/11\/12\/council-votes-to-receive-transit-plan\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Council votes to &#8220;receive&#8221; transit plan&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8010,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3820],"tags":[900,898,897,497,552,352,789,790,351,703,590,619,386,348,499,899],"class_list":["post-1141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transit","tag-as-you-like-it","tag-barry-dalrymple","tag-bill-karsten","tag-city-hall","tag-councillor","tag-dartmouth","tag-dawn-sloane","tag-downtown-councillor","tag-halifax","tag-halifax-regional-council","tag-lawrence-plug","tag-portland","tag-public-transit","tag-transportation","tag-usd","tag-waverley-fall-river-beaverbank"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Council votes to &quot;receive&quot; transit plan - Spacing Atlantic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/11\/12\/council-votes-to-receive-transit-plan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Council votes to &quot;receive&quot; transit plan - Spacing Atlantic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"HALIFAX &#8211; The Metro Transit Strategic Plan \u2013 yes, that strategic plan \u2013 was \u201creceived\u201d by Halifax Regional Council on Tuesday, but the reception was far from a warm one. 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