The herald ran an opinion piece today by Andrea Arabic bemoaning the Robie Street bus lane projects. Its incorect, and requires a firm rebuttal.

Residents recently noticed windows being boarded up in a series of buildings along Robie Street, between North and Cunard. These buildings were purchased by HRM to make way for the widening of Robie Street and the implementation of the Robie Street Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project.

Residents might rightly question why, in the middle of a housing crisis, HRM, in partnership with the province, would spend an estimated $64.5 million dollars to buy 33 properties, containing dozens of affordable housing units, just so they can tear the buildings down to make way for buses.

The affordability of these units was dependant on the remaining owned by the same landlord. after sale, these capped properties faced a tax bill of around $1000/month, making units within unaffordable.

And that is only the cost of land acquisition. In 2025, HRM estimated that the entire project would cost approximately $150 million. However, as we have seen with other HRM infrastructure projects, by the time the project gets underway in 2028 and is completed four years later, these costs will undoubtedly have grown exponentially.

It is hard not to compare this project to the Harbour Drive, which was proposed in the 1960s as a four- to six-lane highway to be built along the Halifax waterfront to combat traffic issues. Sound familiar?

This project bears no resemblance to Harbour Drive. It is the addition of a single transit lane to an already 3 lane road. Robie is already more then 3 lanes for much of its length, yet no one is calling for the city to narrow the existing portions, which would carry long term cost savings in road maintenance. Robie street is too wide, and should be narrowed would be a more cogent argument against the proposed widening.

As part of the planning for Harbour Drive, numerous  properties were demolished, hundreds of residents lost their homes and historic buildings were demolished. Thankfully, due to the efforts of individual residents and groups like the Heritage Trust, the project was halted. The only part of Harbour Drive that was ever implemented was the Cogswell Interchange, a mistake that residents of Halifax have just spent $138 million fixing.

This is incorrect. The land was cleared as a result of 1945 and 1957 master plans for Halifax identifying areas of inadequate housing and living conditions, and federal funds becoming available for the clearance of those areas. Developers put forth the idea of Harbour drive, and the city investigated it, but with council of the day seeing limited benefits of the proposal, and not having a source to fund it, only cogswell got built, which was required by the contract to build Scotia Square, as the development would remove all east-west circulation between duke and Cornwallis (Now Nora Bernard) streets.

There were funds available for clearance, but limited funds available for new housing. Much of the land cleared in the name of slum clearance and civic improvement remains vacant today. It should also be noted the population of the peninsula peaked in 1956, and despite a decade of flat out building, has not re-achieved that population. Residents who were displaced by slum clearance, likely moved to new suburbs in the county, which contribute to our current traffic woes.

At the time, traffic planners and many politicians thought that the Harbour Drive was the answer to Halifax’s traffic woes. Today, it is clear that had the Harbour Drive gone ahead, Halifax would be a much-diminished city, with residents and tourists cut off from the harbour and a highway in place of the historic properties. What is proposed for Robie Street is not on the same scale as Harbour Drive, but it shares many of the same characteristics. It is heavy-handed, irreversible and relies on outdated thinking.

At the time, politicians wanted more traffic downtown, as they thought that traffic would make business more successful. Robie street’s bus lane is about moving more people in fewer cars, actually the opposite of building a highway. Halifax council actually preferred a south end bridge over the current narrows location, since those folks bypassed the shops and services of Halifax.

It is socially, fiscally and environmentally unconscionable to spend hundreds of millions of dollars tearing down affordable housing, destroying a heritage streetscape and cutting down dozens of trees to implement a plan that is unlikely to make any tangible improvements to traffic. We must find a better way to make it easier to travel to and from the Halifax peninsula. If we do not, future generations of Haligonians will look back on the Robie Street widening and put it in the same category as the Harbour Drive. The question is, will our elected officials today have the wisdom to stop this disaster before it goes any further? If not, history will judge them harshly. For those who say it is too late, many buildings have already been purchased, I say, what a perfect opportunity for the province and HRM to retain and operate these properties as long-term affordable housing.

The housing being removed is old, but not heritage. its not particularly affordable after cap removal, and once redeveloped, generate more tax revenue for the city then they bring in from that block now. The trees are also mostly dead, and will also be replaced as part of the project.

here is the fundamental problem with the groups opposed to the Robie street bus lane. They dont propose another solution. Its unclear if Andrea would support making Robie street transit only. what about a congestion charge? why not also argue that the north bound lanes next too the common be removed, and merged back into the the common lands?

Will our elected officials and planning staff rise to the occasion, see the error in their plans for Robie Street and come up with a better solution? Will residents have the fortitude to demand that of them?

The fact is, this isn’t about the bus lane, its about change, that the group doesn’t like. they don’t propose alternatives, because they don’t want alternatives, they just don’t want this. They are drivers, as they take a car to their Robie street bus lane protest table they periodically setup at peak times

The above image shows the project area. green dots are trees. Numbers on Buildings are registered rental units. Between Willow and Charles streets we can see an area where the city has carved off the portion of the property it needs for the bus lane. The remainder of that land will be resold for re-development.

From other sources, it looks as though approximately 20 housing units are being removed. Its probable one new building on this stretch will replace all of them, leading to a significant net increase in units in this neighborhood. Not all of the 33 affected properties require demolitions. HRM has published a map with the land required to be acquired highlighted in pink. Much of this land is already vacant, or used as part of a car dealership.