Halifax Active Transportation

[bartekci]

Agree with the above in how much sense it makes to see these numbers ... the peninsula is so geographically small (relative to many cities) that it's perfect for getting around on foot. One can run the whole peninsula (loop around it) in around ~22km.

I've been living in Fairview (at the bottom near DVR) and even in the short 4 years I've been here I see myself walking to more places. We have the Superstore a short walk for groceries and a growing amount of retail on DVR (and finally, sidewalks this/next year!). With the upcoming condos to be wrapped up on Joe Howe in the next 1-2 years, we'll see even more ground floor retail, amenities. Then, there's the growth nodes at Mumford and eventually Bayers Rd Centre.

I presume most of those stuck in traffic are coming out of the peninsula, eg Sackville and other areas where commuting by vehicle is the only (sane) option

[OldDartmouthMark]

Three levels of government contributing to active transportation in Lower Sackville, N.S.

The Lower Sackville area in Nova Scotia has access to a new section of trail, according to a news release from the government of Canada on Saturday.

The federal, provincial and municipal governments combined to spend $680,000 to add 1.5 kilometres to Beech Hill Trail, making it a 2.9-kilometre gravel trail in the Sackville Lakes Provincial Park.

The federal government will provide $237,642 in this phase of the project through the Active Transportation Fund (ATF). The provincial government contributed $94,000 and the Halifax Regional Municipality will spend $205,000.

In addition to the contributions from each level of government, The Sackville Lakes Park and Trails Association contributed $136,701 and the Trans Canada Trail contributed $15,000.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Bike lane construction delayed in Halifax after tram lines discovered

Construction on Almon Street in Halifax that started more than a month ago will continue longer than expected after city crews uncovered old tram lines beneath the road.

“In order to remove the tram lines, we had to bring in larger breaking equipment that could cut through the concrete and steel rails,” said Laura Wright, spokesperson for Halifax Regional Municipality(opens in a new tab) (HRM).

The city discovered the tram lines while building bike lanes through Almon Street. Crews have completed one lane, with plans to add another on the opposite side of the street. Construction has restricted traffic on one side of the road.

The city said it is unable to accommodate traffic for safety reasons due to the depth of the tram lines. Closing the road will allow the contractor to backfill gravel during the removal process to restore local access.

FWIW, I'm a little surprised that the City didn't seem to be aware of the location of their old tram lines. It's not like it was secret information...



Tracking Halifax's history: Tram tracks, cobblestone uncovered on Spring Garden Road

[Keith P.]

Geez, if they knew they were there I have to wonder why some bright light within the vast HRM bureaucracy hasn’t proposed reinstating the trams. They would serve far more people than these lanes.

Oh, wait, it’s the HRM bureaucracy. How silly of me.

[Dmajackson]

Might as well just casually throw a photo of Almon Street Bikeway in here.


HalifaxDevelopments.ca (Photo by David Jackson)

[OldDartmouthMark]

That looks really nice!

[Keith P.]

This particular section is the sort of bike lane that should be used more widely if there is any rational case for spending so much tax money. I'm sure it wasn't cheap to relocate and replace the sidewalk there and acquire whatever land was required to do it, but this looks far safer and less intrusive.

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

This particular section is the sort of bike lane that should be used more widely if there is any rational case for spending so much tax money. I'm sure it wasn't cheap to relocate and replace the sidewalk there and acquire whatever land was required to do it, but this looks far safer and less intrusive.

Yeah I think this is the kind of install that's good for everyone - drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

It surely costs more, but doing it "right" is the right thing to do. It's nice to see Halifax finally building mature AT infrastructure.

On a related note, the Integrated Mobility Plan dashboard is pretty cool. There do seem to be some short-term data quality issues (was February 3rd REALLY the peak day for the Hollis bike lane??), but the long-term trends are really helpful. This year (2024) is showing as a banner year in the Hollis and South Park data. This certainly aligns with my anecdotal experiences - I now have days where my bike home will have lines of cyclists waiting for a light. I think very shortly--as the core AT network nears completion and as overall traffic gets worse--we're going to see a real tipping point in the number of cyclists.

[DBaz]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Yeah I think this is the kind of install that's good for everyone - drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

I’m in the process of driving down Quebec’s Cote-Nord and I’m surprised how well developed their bike infrastructure is. Much of what I’ve seen is of this type. It’s not a region of the country known for having a lot of extra cash yet they seem to be doing a lot.

It’s hard to argue that Baie-Comeau or Saguenay aren’t cold, windy, snowy, and hilly!

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by DBaz

I’m in the process of driving down Quebec’s Cote-Nord and I’m surprised how well developed their bike infrastructure is. Much of what I’ve seen is of this type. It’s not a region of the country known for having a lot of extra cash yet they seem to be doing a lot.

It’s hard to argue that Baie-Comeau or Saguenay aren’t cold, windy, snowy, and hilly!

Nobody’s denying that. What gets denied is the contention that these things get used a lot.

[DBaz]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Nobody’s denying that. What gets denied is the contention that these things get used a lot.

My contention is that they get used enough that the majority of people think they're worth it.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by DBaz

My contention is that they get used enough that the majority of people think they're worth it.

I would strongly question that statement. I believe the actual numbers among ratepayers would very much be in the "waste of money" category. There is only so long that the proponents can use the "build it and they will come" chestnut, since they have been built for some time and they haven't come, for many self-evident reasons.

One thing related that I wish could somehow be enforced is the oft-ignored helmet law. Yesterday in my travels I saw perhaps a half-dozen cyclists. One and only one was sporting a helmet. That leaves out the two guys I saw crossing the MacD bridge on a bike designed for one, with the other riding almost piggyback style on the top bar. Seems safe indeed.

[OldDartmouthMark]

I would argue that over regulating cycling would tend to dissuade people from using the resource, or tying up law enforcement on micro managing cyclists when they could be doing more important work. Both, actually.

Cycling has always been ’ride at your own risk’, and perhaps should continue that way. As soon as you require mandatory training, licensing, safety equipment usage (granted it is required, but obviously LEOs don’t have the time or resources to enforce it), you open up a situation where all kinds of government bureaucracy appears to eat up more tax money and clog up the system.

The cyclist will always be the one at the most risk when dealing with motor vehicles, and thus the responsibility to remain safe is totally on them. Cycling lanes are a tool that cyclists can use to help ensure their own safety, and thus I think it’s entirely reasonable to provide that for the cycling community. Just like we provide sidewalks (usually) for pedestrians but don’t require walkers to wear helmets and knee pads to protect themselves in a fall.

That said, being against over regulation doesn’t mean that there are no regulations at all. There should still be enforceable laws to protect people in the event of egregious activities, such as riding at speed on a sidewalk where pedestrians are present, or weaving in and out of traffic or riding in dangerous locations like the Mackay bridge, etc. to protect cyclists from themselves in extreme circumstances, IMHO.

[ArchAficionado]

We've got lots of lanes on the island of Montreal with traffic counters that get over 10k riders per day - this is much more traffic than, for example, a rural road. Yet, nobody questions the utility of the rural road.

I acknowledge this is in a more populous city with a more established cycling culture, but said culture has developed in direct consequence of multiple decades of prioritizing multuple modes of transit, not just cars.

[Nouvellecosse]

It's been well documented that the biggest thing that affects cyclist safety is the number of cyclists present. This is because other road users become accustomed to seeing and looking for them. So anything that reduces the number of cyclist also tends to make cycling more dangerous which means that measures intended to improve safety may actually do the opposite if they discourage people from cycling.

With bike lanes, I think we've established that cyclists make up a small proportion of total traffic movements. But bike lanes also make up a small proportion of total road surface and that would still be the case if the network was significantly expanded. A road with bi-directional bike lanes will devote about 3m of space (1.5m per direction, same as a sidewalk) which is less than one standard car lane which is a minimum of about 3.5m. So on a road with four 3.5m wide general traffic lanes, a sidewalk on each side and a bi-directional bike lane, the bike lane takes up about 15% of the road surface. But when you consider that a) most roads don't have a bike lane and b) 4 lane roads are the minority (usually just major thoroughfares) and c) many roads are much wider the 3.5m per traffic lane due to things like street parking and paved shoulders, the actual percentage is MUCH smaller. Likely below the 2% figure of trips performed by bike. But it's absolutely true that we shouldn't have this sort of stingy bean-counting for some types of transportation when it isn't applied to others.

Especially since the important aspect that people overlook is that bike infrastructure isn't constructed mainly for the comfort and safety of existing cyclists but for the sake of the large percentage of people who say they'd like to bike more but don't feel safe currently. One fairly recent survey in the HRM saw 60% of respondents place themselves in that category. So worrying about there currently being low usage isn't relevant when the main point is to attract more. It's like someone complaining that their hands aren't clean enough to justify buying soap since soap is associated with clean hands. Like, that's not quite how that works lol...

But of course for it to work as intended, there needs to be a big enough network for the infrastructure to allow these timid prospective cyclists to make useful trips by bike which means that short sections of bike lane not connected to a wider network aren't that useful. So it can be deceiving to just contrast the number of people using bike lanes with the combined length of the city's bike lanes. You need to compare it to the distance one can cover without having to leave the network and the number of origin/destination pairs it connects to. Once those latter two aspects see notable improvements the number of users increases as well. Not instantly of course since it takes time for people to become aware of and respond to the change. But it will attract users over the following months and years.

[Dmajackson]

Let's liven this forum up with a controversial AT project!

Implementation of Peninsula South Complete Streets: University Avenue and West and East Connections

[Keith P.]

Good luck dealing with the south end elites owning property on some of those streets.

The majority of the report is a good example of how HRM spends tax dollars like pennies given the ridiculously overdone installations on University Ave, looking like a theme park.

[ButterNutPecan]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Good luck dealing with the south end elites owning property on some of those streets.

The majority of the report is a good example of how HRM spends tax dollars like pennies given the ridiculously overdone installations on University Ave, looking like a theme park.

Yeah, but have you seen how people oriented theme parks are? The walkability of downtown Magic Kingdom?

[LikesBikes]

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

Let's liven this forum up with a controversial AT project!

Implementation of Peninsula South Complete Streets: University Avenue and West and East Connections

Great to see this moving along. It's pretty crazy that in all of the South End there's no protected east-west bike connection. This will be a huge improvement for connectivity.

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

There is only so long that the proponents can use the "build it and they will come" chestnut, since they have been built for some time and they haven't come, for many self-evident reasons.

I think the thing is we're only just now getting to the point where we've truly "built it". Yes, there has been ten-ish years of "real" investment in AT, but it's only now that we're starting to see the skeleton of a connected network.

Up until now bike lanes in HRM have been like the sidewalks in Bayer's Lake - sparse and unconnected. You'll see the occasional people walk over informal trails between the few pieces of sidewalk, but by-and-large people don't walk there unless they absolutely have to because it's such an unpleasant experience. It's been the same with bikes. Yes, there are stretches of bike lanes, but to use them you have to go off-road (or rather, on-road) and so only those that have to or are really dedicated use them.

But that's changing. The big connections are being made, and now it's actually enjoyable to bike in certain areas. To use my own experience, biking from the deep North End into downtown was super uncomfortable because the Barrington Greenway just dead-ended at the sewage treatment plant and then you had to awkwardly find a way onto the road and navigate through one of the most car-focused pieces of infrastructure (the Cogswell Interchange) in the city. As soon as they started work on the Cogswell project and put in the multi-use trail connection from the sewage treatment plant to the Hollis Street bike lane, it got downright enjoyable and became my primary way to get to work.

And now those connections are starting to show up in terms of increased ridership.

I think the next couple of years are going to be a real tipping point in terms of cycling in this city (at least on the Peninsula).