Prof says more roads, better transit needed in wake of storm that trapped motorists

Long lines of cars crawling along the highways and side roads of the Halifax area on Thursday were more the result of poor transportation planning than snowy weather, says a Dalhousie University transportation professor.

Some people spent hours in their cars yesterday trying to get out of the city's downtown to the suburbs and parts beyond. The commutes of many motorists tookhours.

"What we really learned from yesterday is a few incidents and a few problems on the road really can create a gridlocked network all over the city," said Ahsan Habib.

The professorsaid the bad weather andcarcrashes may have added to Thursday's traffic woes, but they weren't the root cause.

He said there simplyaren't enough ways for people to leave peninsular Halifax. He said ifthere are a few car accidents due to snowy conditionsor vehicle breakdowns that block roads,the peninsula's regular traffic has to find its way out through even fewer streets, and that slows everything down.

"We need to review our entire network to create more arterial roads, real arterial roads that flows traffic from the downtown core to the highways," said Habib.

"We need options to get people out, not just emergencies, but this kind of extreme time."

Those options could include more fast transit buses, a ferry that could take people to Bedford, a third bridge to Dartmouth and more bus lanes. The municipality has started work on some of those options, but Habib said more of them need to be acted upon.

Salt truckswere out on highways, according to the provincial Transportation Department, but there werecomplaints about a lack of plows on those roads.

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