Quote:
Originally Posted by IanWatson
I think one of the biggest things we could do to make downtown living more attractive is find a solution to the container trucks.
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Three main solutions have been floated to solve the truck traffic problem downtown...not, of course, including the status quo solution, which is to watch Halifax's importance as a port slowly erode to the point where no more containers land here.
(1) The most expensive of the three is to build a third harbour crossing, tunnel or bridge, to connect the south end to highway 111.
(2) Bill Black's pet project, which briefly seemed to have the attention of the MacDonald Tories, was to pave over the south end railway cut to allow trucks to use it, because, you know, who uses trains any more.
(3) The third solution, which makes the most sense (in my view), is to build a marshaling facility outside the city core and transport containers and other cargo there by rail.
There is nothing revolutionary about the latter option: major port cities have had terminal and transfer railways for years. Black's option, on the other hand, flies in the face of the practice in cities like LA, Kansas City, and others, who have spent billions in recent years to achieve what Halifax did in 1918: a completely grade separated railway.
Since it seems highly doubtful a third crossing will be built anytime soon, it seems to me the last option is our best hope of removing most heavy trucks from the core.
PS: Here's a sidebar of note: I'm trying to imagine the scenic roundabouts, proposed for the Cogswell lands redevelopment, as a thoroughfare for the volume of truck traffic now carried on Hollis Street.
Cogswell lands concept video
PPS: I note that the concrete abutment on the utility pole at the SW corner of Hollis and Sackville Street is now being enlarged for the second time in a year because heavy trucks trying to negotiate the turn onto Hollis in front of the Maple construction continue to strike the electrical junction box at the base of the pole.
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