Not everyone is happy with recent traffic changes on Spring Garden Road.
As of Monday morning, the street is only open to bus and foot traffic weekdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m..
The changes will be in effect for one year, as part of a pilot project aimed at making transit more reliable, and the street more walkable.
One Spring Garden business owner says the changes are “an experiment at [his] expense”
Kurt Bulger, Co-Owner of Jennifer’s of Nova Scotia, says he worries the change will keep people living outside the peninsula, who drive most places, from visiting.
“[The city is] still excluding [thousands of] people that live off the peninsula and turning them into second class citizens in their own city.”
Despite that, Bulger says he’s hopeful things will turn out okay.
“I have to be optimistic that, in the long run, that… people in the rest of Halifax will continue to come down and support us.”
Bulger took his concerns to Councilor Waye Mason, who represents the downtown core, but he says he didn’t feel heard.
“[Mason] did say at one point, ‘if you go bankrupt, there’s more people that will take your place.’”
Jennifer’s of Nova Scotia has been selling locally crafted giftware in the city for 42 years; they’ve been on Spring Garden Road 40 years.
“I’m not happy about it, but at the same time, I have to try to be positive about it.”
Halifax’s first transit-priority street will be assessed at the six month mark of the pilot, and again when the pilot wraps up in one year.
“Maybe this experiment will turn out right, maybe it won’t,” Bulger says.
Our newsroom reached out to Waye Mason for comment on this issue, but hadn’t heard back at the time of publication.
