Council Update: Windsor Street Exchange

Agenda, January 28

Windsor Street Exchange
The major item on Council’s agenda yesterday was the Windsor Street Exchange project. The Windsor Street Exchange project started in 2019 with significant support from other orders of government. Inflation has taken a significant toll on the budget since 2019 and the project scope has steadily grown as HRM has tried to meet other important transportation objectives around transit and active transportation. Unfortunately, ballooning costs and staff’s inability to fully build in transit and active transportation has killed the project. What Council was presented with yesterday was a much more expensive plan than originally planned and that only partially meets HRM’s transportation objectives. Council voted it down 8-6.

Cost
A major part of the reason that Council turned down the Windsor Street Exchange project was ballooning costs. When the Windsor Street Exchange project was first initiated back in 2019, there was extensive and relatively generous support from other stakeholders. Transport Canada pledged $23,500,000, the Province $10,750,000, the Port of Halifax $2,000,000, leaving HRM to cover $10,750,000. At a municipal cost of $10,750,000, the project was a pretty good bargain. Unfortunately, the Windsor Street Exchange is a perfect example of the fundamental flaw in how municipal infrastructure is funded in Canada.

When other orders of government pledge money to a project, their contribution is always fixed. This means that municipalities carry all of the risk around scope changes and inflation. Early estimates are never accurate due to the nature of construction and project management and the inevitable added costs end up being something that municipalities shoulder alone. With Windsor Street Exchange, both scope changes and inflation hit hard and the combination of the two meant that HRM’s share of the project grew from a relatively modest $10,750,000 (23%) to an estimated $53,750,000 (36%). In comparison, federal funding that was originally estimated to be 50% of the project has shrunk to just 16%.

A significant part of the recent budget increase is to coordinate work with Halifax Water. Coordinating with Halifax Water is a normal part of construction projects as there are cost-savings to be had in tackling underground and surface infrastructure together. If you take out the Halifax Water portion and stick to just the original transportation component that everyone agreed to fund in 2019, the numbers for HRM are downright catastrophic. On the transportation side expenses, the feds and HRM completely swapped places and then some! HRM is now on the hook for 60% of the transportation costs! 60% for a project that was originally a 23% cost share for the municipality! This isn’t a sustainable way to fund municipal infrastructure and needs a bigger picture change in approach. Windsor Street Exchange is a poster child for the much bigger problem.

Funding of just the transportation components (Halifax Water excluded)

Sustainable Transportation
So HRM’s financial commitment to the Windsor Street Exchange project was much, much deeper than anyone envisioned. It is, however, still an important intersection in the city and a key transit route both now and for HRM’s envisioned Bus Rapid Transit network. HRM’s Bus Rapid Transit Plan proposes to run the Green Line going through the Exchange.

Despite ballooning costs, the Windsor Street Exchange is the kind of location that’s still worth thinking seriously about as it’s a key spot for the future of mobility in HRM. Investing significantly in this location could still make sense if HRM’s other objectives around making the shift towards a greater reliance on transit and active transportation were being addressed. Did the project though deliver on that? Sadly, no.

Windsor Street’s design is at best a half loaf when it comes to sustainable transportation. The design would have a multi-use trail for cyclists and pedestrians on one side and an inbound transit lane. Bikes and pedestrians wouldn’t be separated and, crucially, there was no transit lane for outbound buses. It’s not bus rapid transit if buses are jammed in traffic for half the overall trip!

Council has been pretty consistent in directing staff to address the shortcomings around transit and active transportation. In 2023, when staff presented the Windsor Street work at the Transportation Standing Committee, the Committee passed a motion directing that transit and cycling be better incorporated into the design. Regional Council did the same thing in June 2024. Each time the staff response that has come back has been that it isn’t possible to make further improvements. The problem for staff has been time constraints to meet the terms of the federal grant and federal requirements to improve access for truck traffic at the Fairview Container Terminal. So the design before us had bikes and pedestrians sharing space and one-way transit priority. Absolutely no change from June. I could get onboard for half measures for $10,000,000 but at $53,000,000 and climbing and a 60% project share, this just stopped making sense.

Staff did indicate that Council could approve the design before us and start to plan for a future phase 2, which would involve widening the road so that there would be space for an outbound bus lane. Widening the road would require buying land from the Port and/or moving graves at St. John’s Cemetery. The back of the napkin cost for that was another $50-70 million, with no confirmed funding from any other order of government. The option of building what we can, even at five times the original cost, and trying to get the rest later was attractive though to some of my colleagues. The problem with that approach was well put by Councillor St-Amand from Bedford who pointed out that phasing projects is fine, but we shouldn’t phase the planning. If we proceeded without a clear plan for Phase 2 we could end up with a result where future detailed work reveals that a road widening to accommodate buses isn’t possible, or costs many times more, or has no funding from other orders of government, or that we can’t get the needed land. There is absolutely no guarantee right now that a Windsor Street Exchange Phase 2 is actually doable or when it could happen.

Opportunity Costs?
There is also an opportunity cost to consider that no one on staff really had an answer for. If HRM has $53,000,000 to spend on a transportation project, is Windsor Street the location that will provide the best bang for the buck in terms of sustainable transportation? Very rough estimates from the HRM capital budget book on other major road projects that would incorporate buses and bikes include:

  • Alderney Drive ($6,850,000),
  • Barrington Street north of Macdonald Bridge ($10,750,000)
  • Phase 2 of Bayers Road ($25,000,000)
  • The whole Bedford Highway ($75,000,000)
  • Dunbrack Street ($9,150,000)
  • Herring Cove Road ($46,450,000)
  • Portland Street ($43,900,000)
  • Robie/Young ($84,175,000)

We could do a lot with $53,000,000 and get a whole lot more. No one really has assessed whether Windsor Street Exchange is the best bang for the buck, which is kind of understandable because Windsor Street started as a relatively modest municipal project that grew into a very major commitment. There really hasn’t been any assessment of the opportunity costs of prioritizing this project over others. HRM’s fund aren’t unlimited, and we need to make sure we’re spending them where it makes the most senses.

Since Windsor Street’s cost had ballooned and it had become a largely HRM funded project that also didn’t deliver on the municipality’s main transportation objectives with no guarantee that addressing the design’s shortcomings in the future would even be possible, it just didn’t make sense to proceed. Councillors Cleary, White, St-Amand, Young, Morse, Hinch, Mancini and I voted no and the project failed 8-6.

Next Steps?
So what happens next? Councillor Hendsbee signaled by notice of motion that he will request a vote of rescission at a future Council meeting since three Councillors (Gillis, Kent, and Deagle-Gammon) were absent for yesterday’s vote. A vote of rescission requires 2/3rds so some folks who voted not to proceed will have to change their minds for this project to be revived. It’s not simply a matter that if Gillis, Kent, and Deagle-Gammon all ended up voting in a redo to proceed that 8-9 then carries the day. My sense of the situation is this will require new information that wasn’t available to Council yesterday to shift positions.

Since full transit priority is clearly not doable in the here and now, about the only thing that I can personally see that would change my mind would be if the Feds or Province came back to the table with an offer of additional funding so that this project is at least once again financially attractive, even if it doesn’t fully deliver on HRM’s objectives. If the feds and Province want to share in the cost of the scope changes and inflation, than I would reconsider my vote. A multi-use trail and inbound bus lane are better than what we have now, they’re just not $53 million better!

I would be surprised if additional funding is forthcoming, but if there is, it will only be because Council turned the project down yesterday. The Feds and Province provide funding to create change. Why would they contribute to help fund scope and inflation increases if HRM had already signaled that we were proceeding? It would have been a very weak negotiating position for the municipality to be in.

I doubt that any serious change in funding arrangements will be forthcoming from the Province and Feds, especially given that we might be just 1-2 months away from a federal election call. So from my day after perspective, what I think HRM needs to do is:

  1. Continue the design work so that we get a fully fleshed out project that includes both an inbound and outbound bus lane and separated space for cyclists and pedestrians and
  2. Begin negotiations with the Port for the needed right-of-way space.

Once we have those pieces more or less settled, HRM could then reapply to whatever federal and provincial programs exist in hopes of getting a fair funding arrangement that doesn’t see the municipality shouldering 60% of the transportation costs. We should continue work on the Windsor Street Exchange so that we are ready to seize any future opportunities that present themselves. Hopefully, in the grand scheme of things, this will turn out to be a temporary pause to get a fair financial deal and better overall result. We’ll see what happens in the next week or two.

Other

  • Reviewed the assessment of results around Council’s Strategic Priorities. This will be more important when the new strategic plan comes forward this year as how HRM assesses progress really needs to be tightened up
  • Approved funding for repairs to the ferry Craig Blake’s propulsion system (taking advantage of it being currently in drydock for routine maintenance)
  • Endorsed Councillor Cathy Deagle-Gammon as a candidate for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities vacant Nova Scotia board seat (election from all nominated Nova Scotia candidates will take place at FCM’s upcoming annual meeting in Ottawa)
  • Approved removing the heritage status of a vacant lot by York Redoubt (subdivided from a still registered property so deregistering the newly created vacant lot that has now heritage value made sense)
  • Approved the Council expense policy (mostly applicable for travel to and from appointments) and gave notice of motion to amend the salary administrative order to adjust the mayor’s salary cap from 2% to 4%

13 Comments

  1. One could both reduce the scope of the project AND raise funds for it by implementing Congestion charges. The peninsula is set up perfectly for it. It’s time motorists start paying their way.

    • We actually don’t have the power to do tolling. The two toll locations in Nova Scotia, Cobequid Pass and the Bridges, have specific enabling legislation. Given that the trend in provincial politics has been to eliminate tolls, I would suggest there there is exactly a snowballs chance in hell that the Province would allow HRM to do a congestion charge.

  2. Councilor Austen, You gave an excellent explanation for the “pause” in the Windsor street exchange project. More support from the federal and provincial governments is needed. Despite the opposition of some, I am firmly convinced that some form of commuter rail should be one aspect of the transit solution –for example, Bedford Highway, Young-Robie to Via Station.

    • I think commuter rail is something we grow towards. I think the experience of Ottawa is illustrative (without the boondoggle project). Start with bus rapid transit and then move to rail from that. In the near term, BRT provides the best bang for the buck

  3. As very eloquent way to say No to everything. This incredibly inept and ineffective lack of decision making by council just results in a comfortable planning session with no action taken. Happy to hear that the port is moving forward with some action on this file.

    • So we should just spend whatever it costs on whatever outcome? If you want to go back through my track record over the last 8 years, I have not been a voice of no. We can do great things and I haven’t been afraid of advocating for municipal investments on big stuff when it makes sense. This project had to, as a bare minimum do one of two things: be a bargain or be expensive but a great fit for HRM’s transportation objectives. It ended up doing neither and so it failed.

  4. This was an excellent and detailed explanation of the case against the project’s current plan, especially useful for those of us now away from the city!

  5. Thank you for the clear explanation, Sam. MayorFilmore’s car video on YouTube was not at all helpful.

  6. This makes a ton of sense. While we’re waiting, I would personally love to just simply have the option of bussing from Dartmouth to work in Bayers Lake. Not even rapid, just fast enough, reliably enough and without too many transfers on the way. The answer to congestion is fewer cars but the “it’ll never happen” response is so deeply engrained in Haligonians that I don’t know how it can be overcome.

  7. thanks for this explanation. It’s very helpful. I agree with yoiu that Coucil should not go ahead with this project. Why in the heck has it taken since 2019 to get to this point? Seems like city staff aren’t cooperating as well as they should.

  8. Thank you Sam for this very helpful explanation of the Windsor Street Exchange issue. I was puzzled by council’s vote this week since an upgrading of this exchange is so obviously needed. Now that I understand the complexities involved, I agree with your position. As always, your communications on council issues is outstanding.

  9. Why don’t you use the $13 million dollars that you are going to be spending for bike lanes on Morris Street in Halifax and put it towards the Windsor Street Exchange project. This would be a much better “bang for your buck” for all the drivers in the city as opposed to the small percentage of bikers using these lanes. Making Morris Street one way and removing parking is only going to create more congestion around the hospitals and schools.

  10. If the Port wants the project completed (but doesn’t want to contribute any more cash) why can’t they provide the land needed to accommodate the widening?

    As a moot point, but worthwhile reiterating, business leaders in the area were against building the new Halifax works yard before finalizing the Windsor Street Exchange Design. That HRM land could have been traded with the Port for the land needed for the widening. If staff had listened then, at least the opportunity wouldn’t have been lost.

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