Fillmore’s motion voted down 12-5 at contentious council meetingPublished Jun 10, 2025 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute readA cyclist carries their bike down the stairs before the start of a bike lane rally at Grand Parade in Halifax on Tuesday morning. The rally was a response to Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore’s motion to pause awarding contracts for any new bike lane design or construction. The motion was later defeated by regional council. Photo by Tim Krochak /THE CHRONICLE HERALDMayor Andy Fillmore’s motion to stop the construction of new bike lanes in Halifax reached a dead end at regional council.The motion was for council to pause awarding contracts for any new bike lane design or construction capital projects, effective immediately, pending a traffic impact review. Fillmore added the item to the agenda for Tuesday’s council meeting.THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.Subscribe now to access this story and more:Unlimited access to the website and appExclusive access to premium content, newsletters and podcastsFull access to the e-Edition app, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment onEnjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalistsSupport local journalists and the next generation of journalistsSUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES.Subscribe or sign in to your account to continue your reading experience.Unlimited access to the website and appExclusive access to premium content, newsletters and podcastsFull access to the e-Edition app, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment onEnjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalistsSupport local journalists and the next generation of journalistsRegister to unlock more articles.Create an account or sign in to continue your reading experience.Access additional stories every monthShare your thoughts and join the conversation in our commenting communityGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorArticle contentBut the motion was met with opposition from a number of councillors during a contentious debate. The motion was defeated 12-5.Critics of the motion, including the hundreds of cycling enthusiasts and supporters who gathered at a Tuesday morning rally on Grand Parade, said the mayor was trying to blame street congestion and transit slowdowns on bicycles.Coun. Sam Austin (Dartmouth Centre) called the motion “a red herring.”“This isn’t good governance; this is foolish. This motion is so ill-advised,” Austin said.“There’s no connection between congestion and bike lanes. It is verifiably not true. I’m profoundly disappointed in this motion for a lot of reasons. Bike lanes do not cause congestion. You can talk to anybody in the urban planning role, and they will tell you that.“Water is wet, the sky is blue, the sun rises in the east, bike lanes do not cause congestion. What does cause congestion is a municipality that hasn’t done the work to provide needed alternatives and is growing rapidly. That’s the cause of congestion.”Article content Cyclists listen to a speaker at a bike lane rally at the Grand Parade in Halifax on Tuesday morning. – TIM KROCHAK Photo by Tim Krochak /THE CHRONICLE HERALDFillmore was concerned about the escalating costs of the bike network and how it was contributing to Halifax’s increased traffic congestion. But in an open letter on Friday, he said the motion was not about stopping progress.“Halifax now has the third-worst congestion in Canada, and the fifth-worst congestion in North America,” Fillmore said, citing the 2025 TomTom Traffic Index. “People here are spending 83 hours a year stuck in traffic. That’s the equivalent of 12 working days behind the wheel in gridlock. The cost of the bike network has exploded from $25 million dollars to nearly $100 million. In a time of inflation, no one’s rent or grocery bill has increased four times like this project’s budget has.“Our record-breaking congestion is driving down quality of life. It’s driving down productivity. It’s driving down the desirability of our region, all while driving emissions up.”Article contentFillmore was elected mayor of Halifax Regional Municipality in October after serving previously as a Liberal member of Parliament from 2015 to 2024. In his previous stint in Ottawa, Fillmore was parliamentary secretary for active transportation under Catherine McKenna, the minister of environment and climate change with the federal Liberal government from 2015 to 2019.“At no time have I said directly or indirectly that I want to stop the buildout of our (active transportation) network,” Fillmore told council. “I have been for years, and I will continue to be for years to come, an advocate for its completion.“But we don’t have a bus system that meets the needs of users. It’s not running on time the way it should. It doesn’t reach the communities that it should. We haven’t provided the bus rapid transit system yet. We haven’t provided adequate rural transit yet. And yet, we’ve taken away the ability for roadway users who … simply don’t have the choice to switch out of their cars into either a bus or … a bicycle or a scooter. We’ve left people hanging.Article content“The residents chose me as their mayor because I pledged to be fiscally responsible and to solve congestion and to build more homes. This motion is rooted in two of the three things that HRM residents elected me to do, fiscal responsibility and solving congestion.”Originally planned to be completed in 2022 at a cost of $25 million, the 53-kilometre bike network is expected to be finished by 2028 with a price tag of $93 million.Before heading into City Hall for what would be a nine-hour (minus breaks for lunch and dinner) council meeting, Austin joined fellow councillors Laura White, Kathryn Morse, Tony Mancini and Shawn Cleary on Grand Parade to listen to the speeches at the morning rally. A cyclist sports a sign as they listen to a speaker at a bike lane rally at the Grand Parade in Halifax on Tuesday. – TIM KROCHAK Photo by Tim Krochak /THE CHRONICLE HERALDCleary, an avid cyclist, also questioned the notion of bike lanes causing congestion in the city.“We have over 2,000 kilometres of roads in HRM and the bike network built to date is 36.7 kilometres,” said Cleary, councillor for Halifax West Armdale. “The bike lanes represent a fraction of a per cent of our roads. About 99.5 per cent don’t have bike lanes and yet this is a major reason for the congestion on our roads?”Article contentCoun. Trish Purdy (Cole Harbour-Preston-Westphal-Cherry Brook) said the mayor’s motion was not intended to stop bike lane construction, to be anti-active transportation or to reclaim streets for cars only.“There seems to be an inaccurate understanding of what the mayor’s motion is intended to do,” said Purdy, who along with councillors Billy Gillis, David Hendsbee and John Young, supported the motion.“This motion is intended to take a sober, second look at policy that was enacted in a world before the reality that we are living in right now. I think that’s always prudent and always the right time. It is not to stop these projects from moving forward.”Article content
Halifax mayors move to halt bike lane construction falls flat
