For the first time ever, there are no tolls on Halifax bridges. Why now?

It's been one week since tolls were officially removed on the MacKay and Macdonald bridges between Halifax and Dartmouth, bringing to an end 70 years of paying to cross the harbour. But some Nova Scotians are questioning the timing. 

"I don't know who was asking for this," says Christine Saulnier, the director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia, a progressive think-tank that focuses on issues including social justice and economic equality.

"I don't think it was top of mind for most people in terms of affordability."

In a news conference marking the toll removal last Monday, Progressive Conservative MLA Tim Outhit explained what Premier Tim Houston told him about the decision, which follows a 2021 move to eliminate toll fees for Nova Scotians driving through Highway 104's Cobequid Pass.

"He mentioned that he had heard from people coming from outside of HRM to go to the hospitals, to go to a Mooseheads game … they didn't understand why they had to pay but they don't have to pay anywhere else in Nova Scotia," said Outhit, a former Halifax regional councillor. 

"And then he mentioned he had some folks in Fairview that were getting tired of having to pay to go to work in Burnside every day and pay a toll."

Money well spent? 

The premier has positioned this latest move — a promise made last year during his campaign for re-election in which his party won a supermajority — as a win-win, saving drivers money and speeding up their commute.

But it remains to be seen if removing the tolls will actually improve congestion and Saulnier questions whether getting rid of them is the most adroit use of taxpayer money.

"We're not doing enough," she said. "We're not building public housing to the extent that we should be. There aren't enough rent subsidies for people who need those right now. We don't have strong enough rules around eviction. You know, all of that would actually make a much bigger difference than the tolls."

In Cape Breton, Sydney-Membertou MLA Derek Mombourquette, the interim Nova Scotia Liberal Party leader, says his constituents are frustrated by having to foot the bill, especially knowing that the MacKay Bridge will have to be replaced by 2040.

"The tolls in Halifax represented a significant amount of revenue for infrastructure that we're going to need to replace," Mombourquette said.  

"We never supported the removal of the tolls. We never heard from many people supportive of removing the toll."

In 2024, Halifax Harbour Bridges brought in about $36 million in toll revenue. 

This year, the province is spending $15 million for an operating grant to the bridge commission, which will become a new Crown corporation, and $86 million for capital repairs.

The Nova Scotia government is also making a one-time addition of $300 million to the provincial debt to account for taking over responsibility for the bridges.

The move by Houston's government to ditch the tolls comes as its controversial Bill 24, which would grant the province sweeping powers over transportation and transit decisions, is discussed again in the legislature this week.

"To me, the whole toll removal, the way it was done, is kind of a cautionary tale when it comes to Bill 24," Kathryn Morse, the councillor for Halifax-Bedford Basin West, said last month.

Move short-sighted, says transit advocate

Douglas Wetmore, a member of the transit advocacy group It's More Than Buses, says the decision to remove the tolls feels like a step backward for sustainability.

"It seems counterintuitive to a lot of efforts going forward to deprioritize movement by cars and instead favour other options like walking, cycling [and] buses," he said. 

"It feels like we're encouraging people more than ever to take their cars from Sackville and Dartmouth and drive it across a bridge into the city."

Wetmore is concerned the province is putting resources toward eliminating tolls when more funding is still required to make the municipality's rapid transit strategy a reality. 

That's going to be a more effective way to reduce congestion on the peninsula, he said. 

"If we continue stalling on it, by the time we actually roll around to implementing it, it's already going to be outdated for our population growth."