'People rely on those services': Continued Halifax Transit disruptions becoming a concern for users, councillors

Transit disruptions are becoming more common in Halifax, with late or cancelled ferry and bus routes leading to frustration among riders.

Several Woodside ferry crossing were cancelled Monday morning due to a mechanical issue.

The service was back making its usual crossing of the Halifax Harbour by the afternoon.

“I use transit almost every day. I primarily take the ferry to get to campus,” said NSCC student Hope Campbell.

That’s been getting harder to do for transit riders, like Campbell.

In the last week, Halifax Transit has announced delays because of technical, mechanical and staffing issues.

The lack of reliability is becoming a concern.

“I think it’s terrible. We can’t operate a functioning transit system where there’s so many cancellations because people rely on those services to get to their jobs, to get their kids to school,” said Halifax councillor Patty Cuttell.

Constant cancellations and delays also affects ridership.

“In various studies around the world, multiple times it was shown that that the transit service needs to be reliable, fast and convenient for people,” said Ahsam Habib, a transportation professor at Dalhousie University.

If it’s not, people will find other ways to commute.

“Last year, the population grew by 28,000 people,” said Jennifer L’Esperance, a senior executive director with the province’s Department of Immigration.

And that’s right on track for the province to meet its goal of 2 million residents by 2060.

Cuttell would like the province to help the city prepare its transit system for this type of growth. L’Esperance says they can assist, but not necessarily with dollars.

“If there’s labour needs to support that transportation system, that’s where we can connect them to markets nationally or internationally that would have that labor, those employees that people need.”

To help now, HRM is running a program to attract and train transit operators to keep the buses and ferries running on schedule.