Bridge traffic still hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels, it’s down a fifth compared to the last normal year, 2019.
That’s about 7.5 million fewer trips, combined, across the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge and A. Murray MacKay Bridge, and a 20 per cent drop in toll revenues.
Steve Snider, CEO and General Manager of Halifax Harbour Bridges, says, as lockdowns loosened and the province reopened to visitors in late 2021, the number of crossings rose to 95 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
However, the Omicron variant surged and the government activated another round of health measures in December.
“We went from 10-15 days with 100,000 crossings a day in October, November, and early December to zero days in January,” he says. “In total, we were back to just 76 per cent of pre-COVID traffic. In January we had less than 80,000 daily crossings for the first half of the month, and that’s not a lot.”
MacKay traffic volumes 2019-2021; from Halifax Harbour Bridges
Macdonald traffic volumes 2019-2021; from Halifax Harbour Bridges
The numbers grew slightly in February to 81 per cent of pre-COVID levels, with one day with over 100,000 crossings, and over 2 million total crossings.
Snider says he expects to see a new bump in crossings now that all public health measures have been dropped.
However, he says high gas prices might be a problem.
“I remember after Hurricane Katrina there was a spike in gas prices and bridge traffic fell rather dramatically for a few months,” he says. “I have no idea if history will repeat itself in that vein, but it’s a possibility if prices remain high for a sustained period of time.”
Snider says it could still be two or three years before bridge use returns to normal.
