Halifax Traffic

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by q12

By Metro area tomtom has Halifax on average with the 3rd longest drive to travel 10 km in North America last year.

I really want to better understand this methodology, because there's no way Halifax is third-worst on the continent on this metric (and I strongly doubt Vancouver is the second-worst). How is London, ON worse than Montreal or New York (where I once spent a full hour in a cab going five or six blocks in Chinatown)?

When the data feels this un-unintutive, it merits a second look.

[fatscat]

I'd like to better understand some of the traffic I see on the peninsula and where it might be headed.

There is obvious congestion (e.g. traffic going onto McKay towards Dartmouth). I can infer that is primarily heading towards Burnside and area, as that is a heavy office/industrial area

But there's two I am curious to better understand, in both cases bumper to bumper

1. On Bayers Rd., heading into the peninsula beginning around 3pm. Getting out of the peninsula this makes sense (people leaving downtown and heading to the 'burbs). Going into the peninsula on Bayers? Not sure. The left turning lane towards Connaught is usually congested. This is traffic coming from the 102 but they are going to .. Bedford? Dartmouth/Burnside? I'm a bit confused

2. Joe Howe towards 102, also beginning around 3pm. I am guessing this is McKay traffic (coming from Burnside/Bedford) and heading toward the 102 to go back home to the 'burbs. This one feels more obvious but there is *a lot*. If they were heading to Bedford (and many are), it would not be that bad. Is there really that much traffic coming from the 102 area? These likely aren't Spryfield folk. Maybe they are doing a short cut to Larry Uteck/Bedford?

Would love to better understand this!

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I really want to better understand this methodology, because there's no way Halifax is third-worst on the continent on this metric (and I strongly doubt Vancouver is the second-worst). How is London, ON worse than Montreal or New York (where I once spent a full hour in a cab going five or six blocks in Chinatown)?

It's by metro area so one factor could be that other parts of the metros are less congested. Manhattan is a tiny portion of the total NY metro area.

It is a bit surprising to me but not that surprising. Travel in Halifax is very slow, but the saving grace is that the distances people tend to have to travel are smaller.

My commute in metro Vancouver is about 11 km and takes 60-90 minutes on transit or around 30-60 minutes by car. Much worse than average. I don't cross any bridges, but it is in a central area with bad traffic and not directly on rapid transit unfortunately. If I had to cross a bridge it would be worse and if I lived out in the distant suburbs it would be much faster.

I find that Canadians tend to underestimate how overloaded the infrastructure here is, and don't invest enough in improving it. Infrastructure projects are often completed at a leisurely pace and when they happen the capacity increase is often minor. I've been surprised getting caught in rush hour in world cities (like London, Paris, or Amsterdam) and finding that it's just not as bad as I figured it would be. Canada feels a bit like the worst of both worlds now, with road infrastructure far behind the US and transit far behind Europe. The overall picture is a bit like the developing world where there's just not enough infrastructure for the population. There are long traffic snarls every day, crush loads on rapid transit where it exists, etc.

[LikesBikes]

Winnipeg and Halifax tied for #2 and ahead of NYC and LA? I smelly fishy stats.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I really want to better understand this methodology, because there's no way Halifax is third-worst on the continent on this metric (and I strongly doubt Vancouver is the second-worst). How is London, ON worse than Montreal or New York (where I once spent a full hour in a cab going five or six blocks in Chinatown)?

When the data feels this un-unintutive, it merits a second look.

I wonder if part of it is that much larger cities like Montreal of NY have a much larger proportion of peak hour commuters on transit including subway and commuter rail? When people can use these options to bypass peak congestion, a larger percentage of drivers are likely people whose commutes are less congested. Perhaps the majority of people going to/from the central areas use transit while a greater percentage of people going to/from places outside downtown use cars. Whereas in Halifax, it's common to drive regardless of origin and destination.

If so, it wouldn't mean that Halifax traffic is worse in an apples to apples comparison (say driving from downtown to an area 10km away) but rather that a smaller percentage of drivers in those other places are doing that so those slow trips are putting less of a drag on the overall average. That would certainly speak to Someone's concern about the lack of alternatives.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

If so, it wouldn't mean that Halifax traffic is worse in an apples to apples comparison (say driving from downtown to an area 10km away) but rather that a smaller percentage of drivers in those other places are doing that so those slow trips are putting less of a drag on the overall average. That would certainly speak to Someone's concern about the lack of alternatives.

It makes sense to me. I was in LA not too long ago and had a car there. You can get caught in enormous traffic jams but you tend to have to travel long distances and most of the time you can spend a lot of your trip on a freeway going 70 km/h+. Car ownership is very high there. I wouldn't take it for granted that LA commuters must travel more slowly than in Halifax.

In NYC a lot of people are on the subway. In Manhattan there is gridlock, sure, but surface car traffic is a small percentage of the total. The outer metro in areas like NJ and Long Island has a lot of freeways and isn't necessarily that congested.

In Halifax there is no rapid transit at all and there are relatively few freeways (no connections in the central part of the city, unlike in practically even US city). A lot of development is happening in older areas with neither freeways nor rapid transit, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but travel times are likely to get longer and longer. The only thing "saving" the city from absolute traffic hell is that distances are short and the core is pedestrian friendly. I think both of these advantages are going to tend to diminish over time and there is no plan to fundamentally change the transportation infrastructure.

[q12]

At 5 pm today:

[fatscat]

Originally Posted by q12

At 5 pm today:

What is the source of that?

[q12]

Here is the source:

https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/halifax-traffic/

Traffic is getting worse:

[Keith P.]

“Cap’n, she canna take much more of this! She’s gonna blow!” ������

[q12]

Good luck getting anywhere on the Halifax side of the harbour.

[q12]

Louder for the MLAs in the back:

More people en route
The Nova Scotia government is hoping the influx of people will continue, with the goal of hitting two million residents by 2060.

"It seems like the governments all want the growth, but they haven't put any thought into the infrastructure requirements of this growth that we're seeing," said Hubley.

The province continues to announce more money for highways, he said, but hasn't invested in Halifax's proposed rapid transit system, for example. Nova Scotia should be putting just as much money into highway maintenance and innovative ways for people to commute to and from work, he said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...ifax-1.7043781