By Matthew Boudreau, Contributing Columnist
The first mention I can find in the online city archive of a Cole Harbor Transit terminal is dated in 2003. Now known as the Portland Hills Terminal, it sits just over 10 KM from Halifax City Hall by shortest drive.
Repeating this process on the Sackville Terminal, I found records back to 2006. The terminal now sits just shy of 20 KM from Halifax City Hall. In that time, the area saw the opening of the Cobequid Terminal as well.
Curious to see what I would find performing a search on discussions over a Spryfield Transit Terminal, I repeated the search. The city archive returned zero results. A general internet search came up with the same number of results. I was not surprised, but more disappointed, that a community closer than the two mentioned seemed to never generate a historical interest.
You may believe that Spryfield is not a transit community. I don’t believe that. Route 9 to Herring Cove is the third busiest route in the system by daily passenger volume. Routes 24 to Lieblin Park and 25 to Governors Brook are meeting or exceeding their passenger guidelines, and the newly formed 127 ending in Cowie Hill is nearly meeting its passenger guidelines.
As the former co-owner of Serpent Brewing, we often heard about how the disjointed system of buses made it hard to get the brewery at the corner of Sussex and Herring Cove. When you look at the system map, it is disjointed. The routes only converge at the corner of Pine Grove and Herring Cove by the Tim Hortons. Not a great layout for pedestrian safety or making connections. This was a system designed with only one purpose in mind, and that is to move people from Spryfield towards downtown Halifax. Nothing more.
Imagine, if you will, that there is this large four lane street where traffic moves freely and provides a seamless connection between Spryfield and its neighbouring communities. Now open your eyes and see Dunbrack Street. By now, any city with common sense would have a bus running the length of Dunbrack.
Here’s the plan I propose: First, incorporate a proper transit terminal into the Spryfield Library complex. It’s time to accept that the intersection at Sussex and Herring Cove needs to be fixed and creating transit priority and pedestrian safety within this project is a great start. It doesn’t have to be pretty, a few shelters and signs. Maybe they can splurge for two of those fancy signs that tell you when the bus is coming. They dished out 14 of them at Lacewood, so two seems doable.
Second, create the Dunbrack Street South Route. Pretty simple, leave the new Spryfield Terminal up Sussex to Old Sambro, to Dunbrack and finally into Lacewood Terminal. It probably will make sense to run along Dentith inbound to Spryfield to avoid the stop sign at Sussex at rush hour. At a non rush hour time though, you now have a proper intercity connection between terminals in about a 15 minute drive, a fraction of the hour long time it currently takes and without a transfer.
Finally, we go all the way and create the Dunbrack Street North Route. The bus returns to Dunbrack until it hits the highway where it exits at Larry Utek to make a transfer, before returning to the highway, and get this, the bus goes all the way to the airport from there. Maybe it dips into the Cobequid terminal on the way to help the folks in Sackville out and create a true intercity connection.
As our municipal and provincial governments push forward on bus rapid transit, this would be an unparalleled use of the higher speed roadways of Dunbrack and the 102 Highway. My favourite part of all this is that this city interconnection would cost a relatively measly amount. Most of this infrastructure is already in place. Smash a few more poles with signs into Dunbrack street. If they really don’t want to have the terminal for now, then just have it start and end on Dentith in front of Canadian Tire/No Frills similar to buses of the past. It’s 2025, it’s time to demand more of your city Spryfield!
