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Michael Kennedy is a lawyer, a board member with Nova Scotia’s Building Owners & Managers Association (BOMA) and, sadly, a commuter in the Halifax Regional Municipality.

The trials and tribulations of HRM traffic are dire, in his considered opinion, its congestion and lack of affordable parking an obstacle to work or play, particularly on the peninsula. And the only remedy, for those without cars or courage enough to join in our messy gridlock, are buses — diesel-powered and subject to the same roads as our vehicular glut.

“If we compare HRM to most other cities our size, even larger, we do poorly,” said Kennedy.

This is a problem of particular consequence for BOMA, which represents 70 per cent of the commercial, industrial and retail spaces in the HRM. Their buildings and the long-term investments they represent, are suffocating.

“We’re seeing an increase in the number of vacant commercial spaces in downtown Halifax, to the point that it’s likely worse than it’s ever been,” said Kennedy. “That trend continues because people can’t get onto the peninsula to work or visit. If they have a car there’s no place to park and if they don’t, they’re reliant on the buses, which aren’t efficient.”

The result is urban sprawl, as places on the periphery like Bayers Lake grow in popularity and replace downtown, destined to be swallowed in turn as the city expands. Today, Burnside employs more people than downtown Halifax and even there traffic is becoming untenable. But in the face of this trend, BOMA offers a solution, championed by Canadian cities once in similar circumstances.

They call it GIRT, or Green Interconnected Rapid Transit, a battery-powered train system, which would circuit all major communities throughout the HRM. It would largely use existing rail, be fed by buses redirected from their downtown toils and powered entirely by wind and solar supplied special by Nova Scotia Power.

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This proposal has been the effort of four years now, on the part of BOMA and Kennedy in particular, as they’ve interviewed Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton and Calgary, all of which use similar systems. In these places, economic development clings to the rail, growing in a predictable, sustainable and reachable way. The result has been fewer vehicles on the road, affordable and convenient travel through major urban centres and a second wind for economic corridors.

Whether or not it would have the same benefits to the HRM is a question answerable only by a comprehensive study, one BOMA has been requesting for some time now. With it would come GIRT’s price, practicality and true effectiveness, but instead municipal focus has been on the expansion of roadways and perhaps commuter rail, rather than this proposed game-changer.

“What we want is either the province, the HRM or both, to do a study, but they won’t,” said Kennedy. “There’s no futuristic thinking.”

But while there has been no clear support from either government, Kennedy and his colleagues are relying on residents of the HRM — almost half of the provincial population — to recognize the merit of their GIRT proposal and inspire their representatives accordingly.

“It seems the users who do complain — and I don’t think there are enough of them —

do so to their councillors, but councillors don’t understand our present system,” he said. “They have places to park downtown. So first, I’d like to see all councillors spend a month using nothing but public transit. Second, I think people should contact their MLAs and ask our provincial government to fix the transportation problem, [and to consider GIRT].”