In this episode host Matt Stickland recaps a relatively uneventful week in city politics. A lot of information about strategic plans, from HalifACT to Snow Clearing but not a lot of ACTion on any thing yet.

Also in this episode, last week's board of police commissioners meeting happened and Matt talks about Eastern Passage's new police expense.

Built to Fail YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/l8kCed6o4Bc?si=9BjkcecFQJAQbtCH

The city's housing strategy survey: https://engagehalifax.ca/housing-strategy

In this special episode of the Grand Parade podcast, we feature the spooky YouTube video made by Kevin over at HFX By Bike. In that video (linked below) he explains in great detail how and why the city is fiscally unsustainable.

Also linked below, as mentioned in the intro, is the city's housing strategy public engagement survey. Have a safe and dry Halloween

Built to Fail YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/l8kCed6o4Bc?si=9BjkcecFQJAQbtCH

The city's housing strategy survey: https://engagehalifax.ca/housing-strategy

This week is all about Road Safety and how Halifax has killed a record number of people this year on our roads. This violence is both publically funded at great expense and completely avoidable. In this episode, host Matt Stickland struggles to keep it together as he tries to mimic all of the mental gymnastics on display last week.

As promised, here is the piece by Josh over on CPL.ca: https://www.canpl.ca/news/healey-madness-and-late-playoff-magic-at-the-wanderers-grounds

Here's one of the articles about the Parisian cyclist that was murdered: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2024/10/18/cyclist-killed-in-paris-this-case-is-stirring-up-a-great-deal-of-emotion-among-people-who-travel-by-bike_6729762_7.html

Here's a safestreetblog (an American road safety news outlet) article about that famously incorrect crosswalk study: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/02/12/traffic-engineers-still-rely-on-a-flawed-1970s-study-to-refuse-crosswalks

Here is Ottawa's road safety Strategy: https://pub-ottawa.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?documentid=27362

Here is Hoboken's: https://www.vzhoboken.com/_files/ugd/365b92_c415cf40a108488d981e0609bd9a19f9.pdf

And here is Hoboken's vision zero driver pledge: https://www.vzhoboken.com/

And here is Helsinki's plan: https://www.hel.fi/static/liitteet/kaupunkiymparisto/julkaisut/julkaisut/julkaisu-25-23.pdf

And here is Halifax's: https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/transportation/streets-sidewalks/attachment-1-road-safety-strategy.pdf

So now that you have seen the other student's homework, would you give Halifax a passing grade? No seriously, would you? Let us know, [email protected]

Hey, our road safety strategy is working as designed, which means it's working against it's intended outcome. As a result children and their parents are dying and only you can prevent it from getting worse.

Here are the links promised in the show:

https://thehappyurbanist.substack.com/p/more-cars-in-body-shops-less-kids

The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNSgmm9FX2s

https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/231116atac921pres.pdf

https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/231116atac921waleshandout.pdf

https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/231116atac921.pdf

https://nation.cymru/opinion/20mph-one-year-on-welsh-road-casualties-falling-considerably-faster-than-rest-of-gb/

https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/london-hits-historic-clean-air-32584488

I gotta be honest here. It's 7pm on Sunday night and I have a beer league hockey game to go to and I can't skip it because I'm the goalie. If there is information you wanted in these show notes but is not here please send all your complaints to [email protected]. Enjoy this week's show!

Another week at city hall and another week of the Grand Parade podcast. This week is a far less... let's say excited episode that runs back over the relatively mild municipal news since last Monday

Here are the links promised in the show notes from the ep itself:

The rise of Canadian Women's Rugby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Foq1rCWiYuA&t=1041s

Get involved with your city planning here: https://engagehalifax.ca/2025-planning-changes

Fair warning, the failure of the Bus Rapid Transit pilot in 2022 (but formally at the last Transportation Standing Committee meeting) combined with the failures of council to do tax reform in the 28 years since amalgamation, and the failure to learn any lessons from the Bus Rapid Transit Pilot for the “improved” 2024 Road Safety Strategy sent me spiralling down a rabbit hole. Would you too like to come through the looking glass? No? Well, maybe you should avoid this episode. For everyone else, he’s an angry explanation for just how badly the council has failed us for the past 28 years.

We are back fully recharged to talk about a wet and wild council meeting. It actually wasn't all that wet or wild, as the Dartmouth Cove motion was dealt with early and largely without incident. Most of the interesting debates, and therefor most of this show is about the city's budget. The upcoming budget season, and our massive amount of debt, and our really high future tax rate.

And when you get to the end, let me know what you think about a Grand Parade meetup and/or faux council award ceremony.

Apologies. Due to personal circumstances, physical illness and mental health, there will be no issue with the paper this week. More details on this and local roads in this week's abridged show.

Thanks to the sponsor of this week's show, there's not much in these show notes this week. In this episode Matt covers the three water issues council debated last Tuesday before shining a light on the city's sunshine list.

In the paper this week we've asked our reader for some feed back, check it out in store.