The Grand Parade podcast: It’s time for Halifax to ban drive-thrus for real
When former HRM councillor Richard Zurawski made a pitch for regional staff to explore banning drive-thrus in Halifax back in 2018, he was hoping for a different future from what we see today. At the time, the Timberlea-Beechville-Clayton Park-Wedgewood councillor and Green Party hopeful told his Environment and Sustainability Standing Committee peers he was “deeply distressed” about Halifax’s climate future: A leaked UN climate panel report warned the world was on track to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2040—a threshold after which a Pandora’s box of environmental consequences, from severe droughts to flash floods to longer hurricane seasons, became likelier. Zurawski saw drive-thrus—and the pollution they create—as “obvious low-hanging fruit” that council could take action on to prevent that from happening. As a bonus, a ban would also support the HRM’s goal for public transit and active transportation to account for at least 30% of all trips by 2031.
“We’ve gotten into a very convenient situation where, on a cold-weather day, you drive in, and you always see the Tim Horton’s [lineup], or even drive-thru banks,” Zurawski said on Oct. 4, 2018. “But in this day and age, where we’re talking about serious climate change … this would be an easy way for us to be able to reduce our climate emissions.”
Other Canadian cities had already taken the plunge: Between 2009 and 2014, five municipalities—from Central Saanich and Nelson, BC, to Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie, Quebec—had fully banned drive-thrus. And Halifax had already put the brakes on new drive-thrus in its downtown since 2012. Surely this was the moment to take the initial ban a step further?
Not so. The staff report that came back stopped short of recommending a full drive-thru ban, describing the matter as “complex” and “likely to change” with more electric vehicles on the road in the future. But even e-vehicles can’t solve traffic: Three years after that staff report, a new Kearney Lake-area drive-thru started an hours-long traffic jam on Larry Uteck Boulevard. And in the wake of Hurricane Fiona, some drivers lined up for more than an hour to get coffee at the one Tim Horton’s on the peninsula with power. (As for that UN climate warning of 1.5C? At least one ex-NASA scientist thinks we’ll reach that threshold by May this year.)
A new Popeyes fast food restaurant opened today near #Halifax #Bedford. This is at highway 102 and Larry Uteck. People in their vehicles lined up for hours. @CBCNS pic.twitter.com/Wr3kVnOOav
— East Coast Drone man (@eastcoastdrone) March 30, 2022
In this week’s episode of The Grand Parade podcast, Coast reporter Matt Stickland argues that now is the time to bring the drive-thru ban back to the table. He and fellow reporter Martin Bauman also look into the proposed changes to the Macdonald Bridge bike flyover—not great!—and why the car-free Spring Garden Road pilot project failed.
