Halifax bridge toll removal starts next week, MACPASS refunds expected in April

The removal of toll booths on the Halifax bridges is expected to start next week.

The toll booth removal project in Halifax is two weeks ahead of schedule.

“Ten days from now, these will be all gone,” says Steve Proctor, communications manager of Halifax Harbour Bridges. “The plan is to do it two weekends back-to-back. If we do really well the first weekend, then we may not need the second weekend.”

The Macdonald Bridge will be closed from March 14 to 17. Crews will remove the toll booths, concrete barriers and electrical equipment as well as resurface roadways and reconfigure lanes.

Work won’t start on the MacKay Bridge until the Macdonald reopens permanently.

“We’re closing all the middle lanes, we’re turning that into a worksite so we can do the prep there. On March 17, all of the traffic will be going to the right,” Proctor says. “People are going to come across the situation, it’s going to be new to them. It will be pretty clear where they have to go, there’ll be signs in that kind of thing.”

“It’s a very important infrastructure for us so it will make Dartmouth and Halifax connection much more fast because it’s removing the toll process,” says Ahsan Habib, Dalhousie University’s transportation lab director.

One-hundred-and-five thousand vehicles cross the MacKay and Macdonald bridges daily. Premier Tim Houston pledged to remove the tolls during last fall’s election campaign in an effort to ease congestion.

That might happen down the road, but Habib thinks it might take a while.

“I am suspecting there will be some slight increase at least. I think it’s a wonderful step to improving some transportation flows,” Habib says.

The work on both bridges is expected to complete in six weeks from Friday.

Proctor says all preauthorized payments for MACPASS holders will stop on Wednesday. Refunds will start going out April 15.

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