Investing in Light Rail Public Transit Now:
An Open Letter to All Nova Scotians
Frank Palermo | October 2025
There is ample evidence that higher order public transit in HRM, and around all of Nova Scotia, is the key to how we can grow and build a better future for everyone everywhere, while protecting and celebrating our amazing natural, historic and cultural assets.
This is a moment of immense and existential change, reflected in:
Rapid growth: which could be a transformational opportunity.
Traffic and congestion which can’t be addressed by building more highways, interchanges, and roundabouts.
The need for more affordable housing.
The urgent need to deal with climate change and its devastating consequences on a warming planet, experiencing: intense storms, desertification, forest fires and floods.
Quality of life and equity which is severely compromised, particularly for youth and elders, as well as people without a car who don’t have independent access to services, work, friends and family.
Economic development and tourism which is severely constrained by transportation, but has enormous potential for growth both in HRM and around the province.
These are each, enormous challenges which cannot be addressed in isolation. We can’t solve the housing crisis simply by building more houses. We can’t grow in the right places without a plan and investment in the right infrastructure. We can’t continue to build more highways and expect to alleviate our car dependence, or begin to address cars as a major contributor to climate change.
The Need for Light Rail Public Transit and Regional Passenger Rail
Instead, urban, suburban and rural Light Rail Public Transit in HRM, linked to a coastal passenger rail spine, connecting communities and new growth hubs around the province, is transformational, cross cutting, and key to dealing with the current multifaceted crisis. It is the only way to ensure the future sustainable growth, prosperity, and wellbeing of all of Nova Scotia.
We know that it is possible, and it works. It is being done in Canada, in North America and around the world. We are simply being left behind. Public transit is not about a single route. It has to be a system. It can’t be based on existing travel demand, or hypothetical “scenarios” or “expert” projections of ridership. It needs to be based on a long-term vision and a plan for the growth we want /need, as well as a strategy to enable the shift away from auto dependence. The alignment and strategy for the system should be determined through intense, open and ongoing community engagement. It can’t be a technical exercise, and it has to happen now. There is no time, or money, or advantage, to investing in intermediate steps like BRT.
The Time to Act is Now
As an analogy, think about building a railroad across the country long before most of it was settled, or about the American push to put a man on the moon. Here is the economist Mariana Mazzucato, on why sometimes, the cautious approach is not always the right one:
“Had there been a net present value calculation or a cost-benefit analysis done about whether or not to even try to go to the Moon and back again in a generation, we probably wouldn’t have started. So thank God, because I’m an economist, and I can tell you, value is not just price. ”
A report was recently released by the Province on the work of the Joint Regional Transportation Agency (JRTA). The Agency was established 4 years ago. With some encouragement from Rail Connects NS, the JRTA considered, among other things, the feasibility of rail passenger service in an extended HRM Region. The report, which was finally released a few weeks ago, identified a number of objectives and initiatives, including:
Establishing priorities for improving regional transit service levels and coverage
Establishing a new inter-municipal transit service to connect underserved communities
Launching a feasibility study to assess the long-term potential for passenger rail on certain corridors within the region
At the same time, the JRTA was replaced by LINK NOVA SCOTIA which announced that it would proceed with a passenger rail feasibility study to identify viable options for future higher order transit, including urban and regional passenger rail. While this may sound positive, it is in fact a timid, backward and ill-considered step.
A Systems Approach is Necessary
It is disheartening that behind closed doors, without any community discussion or input, our provincial government has decided to start over with another technical feasibility study which is:
Not guided by a vision or plan for the long-term future of Nova Scotia, or directed toward addressing the major problems facing this province now
Limited to a region which excludes most of rural Nova Scotia, which therefore advances the tired idea of car dependence; the notion that all growth happens at the centre; and, that economic development should only be focused on HRM.
Short-sighted and compromised by accepting Bus Rapid Transit in HRM.
Whatever is done in HRM and the Region has to be a system and has to be seen/perceived as permanent infrastructure around which development can happen. In the centre of HRM (within the Urban Services Boundary), BRT is considered temporary until a permanent Light Rail Transit line can be built. This makes no sense because a permanent transit solution on designated ROWs is needed now. Car traffic compromises the effectiveness and quality of public transit. On Robie Street, to accommodate both cars and traffic, the right of way requires widening the street, at a huge cost. It also means the demolition of numerous older houses and cutting down many mature trees. All of which is destabilizing and upsetting to the community, with little immediate and no long term transportation infrastructure advantage.
In Nova Scotia and HRM, private sector development is ahead of planning and infrastructure. Streets, water and sewer lines, public transit and parks are the major systems around which communities should be built. All are important, but in terms of dealing in a transformative way with the major issues of our time, like how we grow, or deal with climate change, provide more affordable housing, and improve the quality of life. It can easily be argued that public transit is the key. And it has to come first, before there is scattered or random development, which can never be effectively served by public transit. That is the reason that there is a federal Infrastructure Bank, and why an Integrated Regional Plan can be used to secure access to multi year funding to build public transit now.
People Need to be Heard
In Nova Scotia, the community – the people – have been left out of thinking about, imagining and inventing the future of this province. In fact, we believe planners and politicians have played a role in dampening public expectations of our potential, and what we might aspire to. As a consequence, there is little informed public discussion of what is possible or what we should do. Our political leaders don’t want to raise public expectations or make commitments beyond the next election or possibly upset powerful, “trusted” interests. And so we continue to build roads and highways at huge expense, set dull short-term objectives without any vision or plan, and just pay lip service to “higher order public transit.”
At Rail Connects we believe that in order to get political action, people and communities and businesses and particularly youth and elders from around the province should be informed, involved and engaged to:
Understand what is possible and mobilize support for public transit as the first choice and best option toward the change we need now;
See and imagine what a rail-based future might look like, and the difference that it would make in people’s lives every day, throughout Nova Scotia;
To see rail public transit as a long-term strategic investment; and Value its multiple benefits in: alleviating traffic congestion, allowing all of the province to grow, providing more housing and making it affordable; improving our quality of life and equity, and stimulating and growing our economy and tourism.
Rail Connects NS a not-for-profit coalition of diverse interests, groups and individuals. In its discussions with people and organizations, in HRM and across the province, it has identified 3 recurrent themes:
That there is an urgent need for immediate change and rail public transit is a great idea;
That nothing will happen and certainly not soon, because there is no political will or vision (sometimes expressed as lack of money);
That many people, organizations, public and private sector groups and communities want to be involved, to imagine, motivate and make change happen now.
The time to act is now. Standing still is not a choice. This moment is not just challenging; it also provides enormous opportunities for HRM and all of Nova Scotia which can’t be squandered. We need more planning and much more community engagement and mobilization now, more than ever.
Frank Palermo
President Rail Connects NS | Prof Emeritus Dalhousie Architecture and Planning | Life Member and Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada | Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planning | LPPANS