Online survey reveals opposition to moving Halterm to Dartmouth: Port Authority

The Halifax Port Authority has strengthened their plan to expand a south end container terminal following the results of an online survey.

The Port Authority respondents generally support the idea of expanding the Halterm operation, rather than developing a new port on the Dartmouth side:

Part of the reason for Halterm expansion being preferred is linked to cost and time to develop.

Lane Farguson, communications manager for the Port Authority tells NEWS 95.7 developing in Dartmouth would make less sense financially.

“One of the big considerations that people need to keep in mind is the simple cost associated with moving operations to Dartmouth,” explains Farguson. “We're looking at $1.4 billion, plus there would be some land acquisition costs, and then the timeframe on top of that.”

“You couldn't just snap your fingers and have operations flip from one side to another,” says Farguson.

Meanwhile, expanding Halterm would take three years from the date of approval, with a price tag of $416 million, which Farguson says likely has many people seeing the advantages of remaining in Halifax.

“The challenge that we have is that we need those assets in place in a much shorter timeframe in order to remain relevant to the shipping lines that are calling on Halifax currently,” says Farguson.

By comparison, moving to Dartmouth would take about 15 years, Farguson says.

He says another interesting result from the survey is that support was revealed for development of a rail system into the port.

“We're very excited about this, because what we're going to be doing now is looking at what can we do to get those trucks out of the downtown on the Halifax side, and we think that this could possibly get upwards of 75 per cent of the trucks out,” says Farguson.

Nearly 80 per cent of those surveyed support the expansion in Halifax, while only 38% supported the development in Dartmouth.