After 70 years of tolls, drivers in Halifax experienced their first toll-free crossings of the Angus L. Macdonald and A. Murray MacKay bridges on Monday morning.
While work to remove the toll plaza for the MacKay bridge is still needed, the Macdonald bridge is nearly complete.
Friday night, crews demolished the concrete barriers that separated the toll lanes. Over the weekend, efforts continued to dismantle the remnants of the toll plaza.
“The plan is to finish Macdonald first and then turn our attention to MacKay. I see that happening over a period of weeks. Once we finish that, it will be two lanes across without impediment,” said Tony Wright, CEO of Halifax Harbour Bridges.
While the majority of the work is complete, additional tasks remain, such as constructing a median and determining the future of the pylons along the sides.
“We’re trying to avoid having a funnel effect. Basically, we want to have to have two lanes in the intersection and two lanes out of the intersection,” he said.
The removal of the tolls is a cost-saving measure for the municipality, which previously spent nearly $1 million annually on bridge tolls for their vehicles.
Councillor David Hendsbee expressed optimism about the changes, stating he’s “looking forward to more changes and more advancements and improving the network of transportation across our municipality.”
During the provincial election campaign last fall, Premier Tim Houston promised to remove the tolls.
“This is about affordability. It’s one less fee to pay when needing to go where you need to go. It’s money back in pockets of hardworking Nova Scotia,” said Nova Scotia MLA Tim Outhit.
While the bridge commission said it never expected the province to take over the bridges, plans to dismantle the plazas were already underway.
“For quite some time we were developing a project to remove the plaza anyway and adopt all electronic tolling, so a big portion of the work was already developed, so were lucky that’s the case,” explained Wright.
The Bridge Commission is anticipating another possible closure following this weekend, surpassing its planned closures for two weekends.
More than 200,000 Nova Scotians with MACPASS accounts will receive refunds for their balances in the coming weeks.
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