HALIFAX—By the numbers, the municipality can’t afford to implement the ambitious transportation plan council approved last year.

According to advocates, it can’t afford not to.

Regional council’s committee of the whole was set to debate Halifax’s preliminary 2019-2020 capital budget on Tuesday but deferred the discussion to January to give councillors time to dig into the numbers and ask questions of municipal staffers.

The capital budget, separate from the municipality’s operating budget, is a list of projects that Halifax will spend money on next year. Those projects add up to $144.8 million, up from $128.6 million this year.

But there’s another $21.8 million in projects that can’t be accommodated without budget cuts or a tax hike — and that’s on top of the tax hike needed to cover the operating budget, which staff recommend to be 2.9 per cent to the average tax bill.

Of that $21.8 million, about half represents projects linked to the Integrated Mobility Plan (IMP), the ambitious transportation plan unanimously approved by regional council one year ago Wednesday.

The overarching goal of the IMP is to reduce the percentage of Haligonians commuting by car every day. In 2014, Halifax set a goal to reduce that number to a maximum of 70 per cent. Between 2006 and 2011, according to Statistics Canada, that number went up — from 75 to 77 per cent — and it remained high, at 77.7 per cent, in 2016.

The total cost of the IMP will add up to $190 million by the time it’s fully implemented, but the final report on the plan said those projects will save the municipality from having to spend $750 million on roads to accommodate more and more vehicles.

Among the projects unfunded in the preliminary 2019-2020 capital budget is $6.35 million in active transportation infrastructure — all ages and abilities (AAA) cycling lanes and sidewalks.

“Staff will be unable to deliver on new AT (active transportation) or sidewalk projects as directed/anticipated by council,” said the staff report to council on Tuesday.

“For example, staff will be unable to construct the AAA bike network for 2022 as directed by council as part of the IMP.”

“We’re really undermining our own goals that we have as a municipality by not fully funding these in this capital budget,” Ecology Action Centre sustainable transportation co-ordinator Kelsey Lane said in an interview.

“We know we have to, so really what is the delay here? We can’t really afford not to do it.”

Lane said the delay could grow if these projects aren’t funded now because the municipality won’t be able to take advantage of regular street maintenance, like repaving, to make them happen.

“If we wanted to make a street more pedestrian-friendly through bump-outs or through increasing the sidewalks widths, we would take advantage of when that work was planned to happen anyway,” she said.

“So by not fully funding those, what you’re doing essentially is limiting your ability to implement the plan by the timelines we’ve set out.”

Councillor Shawn Cleary said he hopes to amend the capital budget to prioritize repaving on streets where IMP-related projects are planned.

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“There’s no reason why we can’t continue paving at the same rate, but maybe say, 40 per cent, 50 per cent of those projects have to be related to things that we want to improve with the Integrated Mobility Plan,” Cleary said in an interview.

“That might mean some residential streets don’t get paved right away, unless they’re part of a local street bikeway or unless they’re part of something else, and I know that’s going to be hard for some councillors, but … there’s no point in having the Integrated Mobility Plan if we’re not going to put our money behind it and implement it.”

Cleary said that strategy might free up some money for these projects, essentially shifting it from one budget line to another, but he recognizes it won’t be enough.

“I’m not a huge fan of raising taxes unless there’s a really good reason to do it, and I think transportation infrastructure, especially as it relates to our goals of environmental and financial sustainability, that would be something I could defend and sell,” he said.

The total list of unfunded projects over the next three budget years adds up to $118.7 million — representing, according to the staff report, “an increase to average taxes at the end of Year 3 by 13.4” per cent, equal to $256 on the average bill.

The report doesn’t break down what the increase would be each year, or what the tax increase would need to be to fund each item on the list.

Those are the kinds of questions councillors will have for staff over the coming weeks before the budget gets back to council.

Also at risk in the capital budget are transit projects like the Bayers Rd. bus lane, which would cost $3.5 million in 2019-2020, and more projects in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022.

Scott Edgar of transit advocacy group It’s More Than Buses wrote a letter to regional council expressing his group’s concern.

“HRM cannot afford to delay the projects that will allow transit to move more people more efficiently through the regions’ bottlenecks, and that will lay groundwork for the higher-order rapid transit that the region needs,” Edgar wrote of the Bayers Rd. project.

Council will resume the capital budget discussion in January, and the final budget is scheduled to be approved on April 2.

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