Plan Area
The above map shows the areas included in the Regional Transportation Plan. The focus is on Halifax Regional Municipality, but the plan will also include communities that are around a one-hour driving time from Halifax as they have also experienced growth.
The study area includes most of Nova Scotia’s population and one of the most important economic hubs in Atlantic Canada.
The study area includes 14 municipalities outside of HRM:
- Municipality of the County of Colchester
- Municipality of the County of Kings
- Municipality of the District of Chester
- Municipality of the District of Lunenburg
- Municipality of East Hants
- Town of Berwick
- Town of Bridgewater
- Town of Kentville
- Town of Lunenburg
- Town of Mahone Bay
- Town of Stewiacke
- Town of Truro
- Town of Wolfville
- West Hants Regional Municipality
As well as five First Nations:
- Acadia First Nation
- Annapolis Valley First Nation
- Glooscap First Nation
- Millbrook First Nation
- Sipekne’katik First Nation
Vision
Nova Scotians have a safe, efficient, equitable, and resilient regional transportation system. Our people and communities are healthy, connected, and prosperous, powering a strong regional economy
Goals
What do we want the plan to achieve?
Strengthen regional connections
Travel between communities and to regional destinations, regardless of mode or trip purpose is safe, easy, and enjoyable.
A realistic range of affordable and sustainable transportation options are available that lower household costs, emissions and car dependency, reduce fatalities and injuries, and enhance social connectivity.
Enable efficient and sustainable goods movement
Essential corridors for moving goods locally and regionally are developed, preserved, and well-maintained to enable the reliable movement of goods and support economic development and trade.
Lead strategic investments, alignment, and implementation
Infrastructure decision-making and service delivery is cost effective, integrated, and efficient. Actions included in the plan are ambitious yet achievable, maximizing their potential to be funded and built.
Coordinate and collaborate on long-term planning
All orders of government work to align transportation and land use across departments and initiatives. The regional transportation system supports environmentally and fiscally sustainable development, recognizing the different needs of health urban, suburban, and rural communities.
Develop a future ready regional transportation system
The transportation system is resilient and adaptable, able to respond to changing trends, uncertainty, and climate change. There is consideration for technological advancements, societal changes, and the long-term needs of the system.
Principles
All aspects of the planning process are guided by the below.
Accessibility
Provides access to affordable, welcoming, inclusive, and efficient transportation essential for communities to thrive. The design of the system aligns with the province’s goals for an accessible Nova Scotia by 2030.
Collaboration
Integrates a diverse range of ideas to advance regional transportation solutions that address challenges and maximize opportunities.
Equity
Addresses transportation needs for underrepresented and underserved communities so all Nova Scotians can travel easily throughout the region.
Resiliency
Prioritizes solutions that reduce the transportation system’s vulnerability to climate impacts and enhances the ability to recover from service disruptions.
Sustainability
Prioritizes transportation solutions and coordinated land use that eliminate greenhouse gas emissions to meet the province’s net zero target and protects environmental, agricultural, and cultural assets.
Well-being
Better connections for Nova Scotians to one another and the goods, places, and services they need to help build prosperous, safe, and healthy communities.
Project Timeline
- Spring 2023
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Background Assessment
Stage 1 Engagement
- Spring-Summer 2023
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Background review
- Fall 2023-Winter 2024
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Determine Goals & Values
Scenario Planning & Analysis
Stage 2 Engagement - Spring-Summer 2024
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Detailed Analysis
- Fall 2024
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Implementation Planning
- Latest Update
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Plan submitted to government for review, approval, and next steps
Scenario Planning
The Regional Transportation Plan is focused on the long-term vision for the regional transportation system. Traditionally in long-term planning, past trends would be used to predict future transportation needs. This approach assumes the future will be like the present.
But, the world we live in is becoming more uncertain (as recent years have demonstrated), quickly outdating plans that have used this approach.
The exploration of different scenarios is a proven method to help address this uncertainty. Watch the video to learn more.
Travel Demand Model
The JRTA and HRM (in partnership with WSP Canada and the University of Toronto) have completed a new activity-based travel demand model (ABM) to help us make more informed decisions as we develop the Regional Transportation Plan and support other major transportation projects in the region going forward.
The ABM is a flexible, realistic, and policy-sensitive tool that simulates travel behaviour (where, how, and when people travel). A regional-scale travel demand model examines the interactions of population, employment, land use, and mobility options and allows us to test different possible futures, estimate the future need for travel, and assess the impact and benefit of different modes of transportation that will be required to serve the region in the future.
Other types of travel models focus on estimating trips between origins and destinations based on the characteristics of different areas. These trips are then combined to represent travel patterns.
ABMs start at the individual person and household level and are based on people’s participation in activities outside of their homes (like going to work, school, appointments, events, etc.). These activities generate a daily schedule and are linked together to provide a more realistic representation of the complexity of people’s travel patterns. These daily schedules also consider time and space constraints (like returning home after completed activities) which further enhances the ability to replicate real world travel behaviour.
While you might travel from home to work on a weekday morning, you may drop off your children at daycare, or stop for coffee, before you get there. A trip-based model would count those as separate trips.
But an ABM understands this is a series of linked trips on a tour. It helps us more accurately understand when, where, how, and why people travel.
Representing the daily travel decisions for a rapidly growing region of 600,000+ people required a significant amount of data, time, and technical work to understand their habits, choices, and preferences well enough to examine not only how things are operating today and why, but how this might change in the future.
Having a model capable of this level of analysis for the region is a significant milestone for the JRTA.