What the Macdonald Bridge closure chaos revealed about the state of Halifax traffic

A professor at Dalhousie University says Thursday’s closure of the Macdonald Bridge in Halifax is concerning, especially if the peninsula was ever under a mandatory evacuation order.

“We are stuck,” said Ahsan Habib, director of the Dalhousie University School of Planning. “Our last simulation run showed it takes, only for the peninsula – assuming there is no congestion, no incident – it takes 24 hours to evacuate the peninsula. It’s unacceptable.”

Habib says Halifax’s infrastructure is 10 years behind – making closures to one of the main routes in and out of the city almost impossible to get around in a timely manner.

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“I think there are projects in the pipeline. We need to prioritize the ones that are immediate, particularly for this type of situation,” said Habib.

The Macdonald Bridge, which connects Halifax and Dartmouth, N.S., closed Thursday afternoon due to safety concerns over a damaged crane at a nearby construction site on Wyse Road.

A crane at a construction site in Dartmouth, N.S., that prompted the closure of the Macdonald Bridge on Nov. 7, 2024 is pictured. (CTV Atlantic/Jonathan MacInnis)

That closure caused major traffic delays and congestion throughout the Halifax Regional Municipality during rush hour. Some people online said their 30-minute drive turned into two-plus hours.

The situation also forced about 20 people to evacuate from 12 homes in Dartmouth.

Around 5:30 a.m. Friday, Halifax Harbour Bridges confirmed the bridge had reopened after the crane was safely secured.

About six hours later, the evacuation order in the area was also lifted, allowing residents and businesses to return.

Habib points out the current levels of traffic congestion could easily get worse, considering 16 per cent of the population is still working from home full-time.

“Thirty-five per cent are hybrid workers. So, if you account them and bring them into downtown, their workplaces, I’m expecting these types of gridlocks might be more frequent,” he said.

‘We are overdue on delivering bus-rapid transit’

He says utilizing the harbour to move people around the municipality could help with traffic problems. However, there’s still much work and planning that would need to be done to make that become a reality.

“It requires the ferry terminal, and multiple major infrastructure developments, as well as effectively designing that approach to those terminals so that our 18-minute ferry ride doesn’t add 20 minutes to just park or get to transit,” said Habib.

Habib says the only way to improve congestion problems in the Halifax area is by reducing the amount of vehicles on the road.

“The way we could do that is investing on reliable public transit. I’m talking about more than buses. It needs to be bus-rapid transit. The construction, time, or need is much lower than many other expensive alternatives,” he said.

“But we are overdue on delivering bus-rapid transit … We need a dedicated service and we don’t need many of them. We need some strategic corridor of bus-rapid transit.”

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