Busy summer days on the Halifax waterfront are about to get busier and more congested. In addition to regular cruise ship and tourist traffic thousands of people will be heading downtown for the Tall Ships Festival which begins Saturday.
It all happens during an exceptionally busy construction season, with streets already snarled due to detours and closures.
While many businesses hope to cash in on the waterfront traffic, others fear they're going to miss the boat.
“I've been telling them to get some sleep for the last couple of days,” says Uncommon Group president Gordon Stevens.
Stevens owns a number of shops downtown and says his staff are preparing for a busy couple of weeks. He says it’s more difficult preparing visitors for the construction zones they will encounter.
“We need to do a better job of getting people to park their car somewhere that's convenient and then explore on foot.”
The new floating sea bridge on the Halifax waterfront is meant to make exploring on foot easier, bypassing one construction zone.
Businesses along Argyle Street have been outspoken for months about the problems they're facing due to the streetscaping and convention centre projects.
The owners of the Wooden Monkey, on nearby Grafton Street, say while their Halifax location is still struggling to stay afloat, their Dartmouth location is faring much better this year.
Dartmouth Centre councillor Sam Austin says Halifax’s loss may be in part Dartmouth’s gain.
“Anecdotally, I have heard that the last two years with the Big Lift, people have been in the mode of - maybe there's someplace to go in downtown Dartmouth,” says Austin.
On the Halifax side of the harbour, there's little that can be done about the loss of parking spaces so the city says the focus is on transit.
“During the Pride parade this weekend, we added extra buses to routes just to keep people moving in and out of the city,” says HRM spokesperson Lucas Wide.
Austin says it may be time to revive a hop-on hop-off bus service in Halifax. For now, he's working on adding extra ferry runs on busy days to make sure things run smoothly from one downtown to the other.
The municipality will also be shutting down a section of Salter Street to vehicles until August 2, during the Tall Ships Festival. The busy streak continues into August - The Busker’s Festival, Natal Day parade and the peak of cruise ship season are still to come.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Sarah Ritchie.
