PRESS RELEASE

Traffic Jams Cost HRM $7 million / year

Congestion costs Halifax residents and businesses at least $7 million a year. More than 90% of this cost consists of time delay to motorists, about 7% represents fuel wasted while idling and crawling, and about 3% is the cost of extra greenhouse gases emitted. But even those costs are just a small fraction of the full $2.7 billion annual cost of driving in HRM.

Haligonians directly spend 12.4% of their household budgets, or an average of $3,327 a year per person, to own, operate, and park their cars, including paying for gas, registration, insurance, repairs, and car payments. But they incur an additional $3,790 per person in indirect and hidden transport-related costs that are included in property and income taxes that pay for roads, traffic patrols, and accidents, and that result from greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and other environmental impacts of driving.

The cost estimates are contained in a new study prepared by Halifax-based non-profit research group GPI Atlantic to provide measures of progress for HRM's new Municipal Planning Strategy. The HRM-specific study was undertaken after GPI Atlantic released a report on sustainable transportation in Nova Scotia in 2006.

The new GPI study found that private vehicles travel more than three billion kilometres a year in HRM, or more than 8,000 km for every HRM resident - consuming 923 litres of fuel and emitting 2.2 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per person. In sharp contrast, public transit in HRM accounts for only 26 kilometres a year per resident.

Interestingly, even though automobiles in HRM are driven 63% more vehicle kilometres a year than SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks, these gas guzzlers consume 5% more energy and emit 5% more greenhouse gas emissions in HRM annually than automobiles.

And even though 71% of HRM residents live in Metro Transit's service area, and 90% of those in urban and suburban areas live within 500 metres of a transit stop, the vast majority don't use public transit. In fact, 76% of HRM commuters use private vehicles, while only 12% ride buses and 11% walk or cycle. Carpooling is still the exception: Among those who use a car to get to work, 86% are drivers and only 14% are passengers.

On the bright side, the report notes that the popularity of Metro Transit's new express bus services shows that many commuters are willing and ready to switch to mass transit if it is fast and convenient.

The GPI study notes that continuing sprawl has fuelled car-dependency in HRM and generated increasingly severe traffic jams and environmental impacts. Population growth has been fastest in HRM's suburban and rural areas, with the suburban population of HRM growing by nearly 5% in just five years and the ex-urban Hammonds Plains-Tantallon area by 17%, while the HRM urban core grew by less than 2%. By 2026, over 75% of HRM's population is projected to lie outside the urban core.

But while it calls HRM's present transportation system "unsustainable," the GPI report praises the "smart growth" approach to planning in HRM's new Municipal Planning Strategy as having the potential to reverse the trends of the past. By integrating land use and transport planning and having shops, schools, work-places and high-quality public transit all within convenient walking distance, the new Strategy intends to create a more sustainable and environmentally friendly transportation system that reduces driving and congestion, encourages walking and bicycling, and supports much greater use of mass transit.

GPI Atlantic says its recommended indicators can help track progress towards those goals, and assess whether transportation is becoming more efficient by reducing its present exorbitant costs.

For more information, or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Ronald Colman
Executive Director, GPI Atlantic
902-823-1944 (work)
902-489-7007 (cell)
colman@gpiatlantic.org

David McCusker
Manager, Traffic and Transportation Services
Halifax Regional Municipality
902-490-6696 (work); 476-0281 (cell)
mccuskd@halifax.ca

The complete GPI report, titled GPI Transportation Accounts: Sustainable Transportation in Halifax Regional Municipality is available for free download here