Waterfront bus could run in August

Metro Transit to propose route No. 8 to council

Ryon Sampson and Sara Gallant carry portfolios every day. Their NSCAD Port Campus is a 15-minute walk from the nearest bus stop. Photo: Afton Aikens

NSCAD students could start their next school year with bus service to the university's Port Campus.

Eddie Robar, Metro Transit's Manager of Planning and Development, says the transit service will propose a waterfront route to city council in April as part of the annual service plan presented during budget discussions. If approved, route No. 8 will begin service to the waterfront in August.

Robar says the route is an addition to Metro Transit's five-year plan, which went to council in October.

"(It) was really one of the areas that was lacking in that plan," he said.

NSCAD's Port Campus, the Seaport Farmers' Market - which will open this summer - and the opening of Nova Scotia Power's new waterfront headquarters in March 2011 were all factors in Metro Transit's decision.

"There'll be some high-density development in that area," Robar said. "What we want to do is be in before that happens."

The No. 8 would travel from Scotia Square, down Lower Water Street and back up Hollis Street every 30 minutes.

Some NSCAD students say the waterfront should have received bus service when their new campus opened in 2007.

Sara Gallant is a foundation year student. She commutes to school from Bedford by bus every day, which she says can take an hour. She gets off the bus at the bottom of Spring Garden Road then walks the 15 minutes to the Port Campus on Marginal Road.

"We carry our portfolios which are quite huge," Gallant said. "Mine has masonite in it, so that's fairly heavy (to walk with). We carry paint supplies...and different types of tools."

Last semester, Gallant had classes at NSCAD's Port and Granville campuses and walked back and forth between the two.

Ryon Sampson is also a foundation year student. He says he's met "sketchy people" on walks between campuses at night.

Gallant wants the Port Campus included in Metro Transit's No. 18 Universities route.

"(Students who) go to the Mount or SMU or Dal, they're dropped off right outside their school, but we're not," she said.

Robar says diverting that route to the Port campus would take too much time and too many riders "out of the way."

"It's kind of an odd area to service from a transit perspective," he said. "This waterfront route is a good response to that."

The route would also replace the need for a downtown shuttle, he adds. It would connect the waterfront to other bus terminals as well as rural areas, which the shuttle wouldn't have done.

Downtown Halifax Councillor Dawn Sloane was hoping for the shuttle. She has a petition in favour of it with 280 signatures of people who live and work in the downtown.

"(But) you can't look a gift horse in the mouth," she said. "It just makes sense to accommodate the citizens, the businesses and the students of (the waterfront)."

Robar says Metro Transit will respond to Sloane's petition on Jan. 26 in council.

The executive director of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission, Paul MacKinnon, says a waterfront route would be an improvement from no service at all, but a shuttle is a better idea.

"We've heard some skepticism that (route No. 8) won't be a substitute for it," he said.

David Rodenhiser, a spokesperson for NS Power, says the company is optimistic about a waterfront route.

"Thirty per cent of our employees either take the bus or the ferry," he said. "Transit is pretty important for (us)."

But Gallant won't be satisfied until NSCAD's Port Campus gets bus service. She says she doesn't feel like Metro Transit included the waterfront route in its five-year plan for NSCAD students.

"I feel like (it's) because the Farmers' Market is going up," she said. "We have to wait until that building is finished before we can have anything."

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