Halifax Transit

[Dmajackson]

August 26th, 2013 Metro Transit Adjustments:

- Routes 59 & 68 are now ALF and bicycle friendly. The remaining routes to be converted are 5, 30's, 40's, 55, and 80-86.
- Route 8 has been discontinued.
- Route 7 now has 15-min frequency all-day weekdays, 20-min frequency on Saturdays, and 30-min frequency on Sundays.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

August 26th, 2013 Metro Transit Adjustments:

- Routes 59 & 68 are now ALF and bicycle friendly. The remaining routes to be converted are 5, 30's, 40's, 55, and 80-86.
- Route 8 has been discontinued.
- Route 7 now has 15-min frequency all-day weekdays, 20-min frequency on Saturdays, and 30-min frequency on Sundays.

Add Route #10 to the list of routes becoming ALF. It's also getting 30min service Sunday afternoons.



On another transit note, there will be a new five year plan put forth sometime next year. The last one wasn't terribly ambitious and they had a hard time even living up to that. Personally, I think the focus this time around should be on Terminal infrastructure, creating the space needed to add the service levels necessary to actually have a half decent system. Lacewood will be built eventually and a new Mumford should be built and a proper facility in Bedford, near the water and the tracks should be seriously looked at.

I know that in regards to transit plans in this city, you could cut the skepticism with a knife on this site. I'd still like to have some discussion on the matter if it's not too much trouble.

[someone123]

It seems like the pace of improvement over the past 5 years has been so slow that, once you factor in all the suburban development taking place, the city has probably moved backward pretty substantially in terms of traffic congestion and car trips.

The buses are important but I think the city is to the point where bus routes alone won't make a very big dent in the transportation problems, because they get just as stuck in traffic as the cars are. Regional council needs to get serious about moving forward with better forms of transit like commuter rail or some kind of streetcar/LRT with a dedicated ROW component.

I wonder why there aren't any high-level studies from outside consultants who have looked at different transportation alternatives for the city? Part of the problem seems to be that regional councillors don't really know what they want or what the possibilities are. This is why they've jumped back and forth between commuter rail and fast ferries. It's also weird that there is such an obsession with Bedford transit service when the population and densities elsewhere are higher. Do we even know that commuter rail out to Bedford would be better than, say, a shorter LRT line running to Clayton Park (that does not rely on CN approval)?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by curnhalio

Personally, I think the focus this time around should be on Terminal infrastructure, creating the space needed to add the service levels necessary to actually have a half decent system. Lacewood will be built eventually and a new Mumford should be built and a proper facility in Bedford, near the water and the tracks should be seriously looked at.

I know that in regards to transit plans in this city, you could cut the skepticism with a knife on this site. I'd still like to have some discussion on the matter if it's not too much trouble.

If they are going to focus on terminals I hope they hire a new designer instead of the one that did the Bridge Terminal. For all the money that place cost, the layout is pretty awful. Yes, it has lots of seating inside, but the buses stop far away from the inside area and there are zero benches or any kind of seating outside near those locations. How they forgot that is hard to understand. The number of stops is so spread out that you are often at risk of missing your bus if you aren't vigilant.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by someone123

It's also weird that there is such an obsession with Bedford transit service when the population and densities elsewhere are higher. Do we even know that commuter rail out to Bedford would be better than, say, a shorter LRT line running to Clayton Park (that does not rely on CN approval)?

If you've had a chance to go up Larry Uteck recently, you can see it is not going to be low-density for long. That is THE big growth area in the next 25 years and some sort of facility will have to be built along the Bedford Hwy, preferably at the infill site at the bottom of Southgate Dr. The area will have to be served by a hub/spoke system connecting to an express service to downtown. Placing the terminal by the water and tracks leaves all options open, even if BRT with peak-only bus lanes is what we end up with.

LRT running from Clayton Park to Downtown via HSC and Hospitals/Dal would be insanely successful. An express bus route only making 1/2 dozen stops would be a great introductory step to making a strong case to build such a line someday. A new, larger Mumford Terminal is a must for this to even be considered by transit staff.

Originally Posted by Keith P.

If they are going to focus on terminals I hope they hire a new designer instead of the one that did the Bridge Terminal. For all the money that place cost, the layout is pretty awful. Yes, it has lots of seating inside, but the buses stop far away from the inside area and there are zero benches or any kind of seating outside near those locations. How they forgot that is hard to understand. The number of stops is so spread out that you are often at risk of missing your bus if you aren't vigilant.

The lack of visibility of the middle bays from the interior is a glaring problem and naturally those bays have the 1,10,52,60 only the busiest routes at the terminal. Some of those millions definitely went into the landscaping it really does look like a terminal built into the fabric of a park. I'm disappointed that by the end of the first two years the only tangible upgrade to service there will have been 30min Sunday service on the 10. Nothing to Dartmouth Crossing atleast?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by curnhalio

If you've had a chance to go up Larry Uteck recently, you can see it is not going to be low-density for long. That is THE big growth area in the next 25 years and some sort of facility will have to be built along the Bedford Hwy, preferably at the infill site at the bottom of Southgate Dr. The area will have to be served by a hub/spoke system connecting to an express service to downtown. Placing the terminal by the water and tracks leaves all options open, even if BRT with peak-only bus lanes is what we end up with.

Yeah, I have seen it. There are a lot of multi-unit buildings but unfortunately the area is not particularly well set up for transit. It is hard to walk around there and the number of units per acre is not that high, even though many of the buildings are fairly large.

I think transit for this corridor is important, and hopefully something better than BRT will be built, but it is also important to remember the inner parts of the city where a higher percentage of people would take transit and where transit could support densities much higher than what has been built along the Bedford Highway.

A good long-term solution would be to do a commuter rail/streetcar hybrid that could serve the peninsula and the Bedford Highway corridor.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think transit for this corridor is important, and hopefully something better than BRT will be built, but it is also important to remember the inner parts of the city where a higher percentage of people would take transit and where transit could support densities much higher than what has been built along the Bedford Highway.

We're back to terminal upgrades again. The current Mumford can't support ANY new service right now, so something like turning the #1 into a limited-stop BRT with 5min or 7min headways, or more frequent service to South St and SMU via #14 isn't feasible without more space. Increased frequencies on the #7 was literally all they could do, and seeing first hand how busy it can get on Saturday night from Dal-Downtown 20min headway is much appreciated.

A proper multi-modal terminal has to be built downtown as well but that will have to be in conjunction with whatever gets built on the Cogswell interchange lands which safe to say is outside a Five-Year plan.

[Dmajackson]

I agree with the sentiment that Metro Transit needs to focus on terminal upgrades in the next 5-year plan and that Lacewood and Mumford should be considered priority projects however there is one terminal that IMO gets overlooked and has a lot of potential .... COBEQUID!

With the Burnside Expressway coming online sometime before 2020 this terminal is in a great spot to take advantage of that. I can easily imagine a new MetroLink running from a shiny new Cobequid Terminal to Downtown Halifax via Burnside Drive & The MacKay Bridge. As a limited stop service (Cobequid, Burnside @ Akerley, Burnside @ Wright, Burnside @ Commodore, Dockyards, & Scotia Square) and standard 15-30 min headways this would make a huge ridership impact. The prime terminal location would not only service Sackville but also Highway 102 communities and a good chunk of Bedford.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

I agree with the sentiment that Metro Transit needs to focus on terminal upgrades in the next 5-year plan and that Lacewood and Mumford should be considered priority projects however there is one terminal that IMO gets overlooked and has a lot of potential .... COBEQUID!

With the Burnside Expressway coming online sometime before 2020 this terminal is in a great spot to take advantage of that. I can easily imagine a new MetroLink running from a shiny new Cobequid Terminal to Downtown Halifax via Burnside Drive & The MacKay Bridge. As a limited stop service (Cobequid, Burnside @ Akerley, Burnside @ Wright, Burnside @ Commodore, Dockyards, & Scotia Square) and standard 15-30 min headways this would make a huge ridership impact. The prime terminal location would not only service Sackville but also Highway 102 communities and a good chunk of Bedford.

#184 was all set to take off but I don't think they had enough spare Link buses to run it properly (a run like this would need atleast six). I've wondered if the current location could work long term if an indoor facility were built on-site and more routes served the streetside end (the 87 to Dartmouth would be a great start). There is an open plot of land adjacent to the existing terminal. It seems like a natural spot for an upgrade to be built, provided residents of the apt. building immediately facing it don't mind It would be nice if some of the Burnside routes could be restructured to take transferring passengers off of your proposed run. Peak routes could run from Fall River to Cobequid, or to the Fall River MetroX for that matter.

[someone123]

The incremental improvements to bus service are fine but ultimately if Halifax is to have good transit there will have to be a major project along some corridor. Terminal upgrades would be but one small part of that.

One of the signs that transit planning in Halifax is a bit broken is the fact that the province will entertain road and bridge projects costing in the hundreds of millions, and the city will debate spending hundreds of millions on sports infrastructure, but transit is stuck at one $20M terminal every 5 years. It's just not enough investment.

[halifaxboyns]

Metro Transit is planning public engagement for the 5 year transit plan.
Details are here. Engagement is called Moving Forward Together. This is an opportunity (I hope) to really talk about BRT and future LRT options (streetcars, regional rail and LRT). There will also be a public opinion survey (coming soon according to the website).

[Dmajackson]

Some other updates have sneaked into Monday's schedule adjustments!

ROUTE 1 - On weekdays, service after 11 p.m. has been increased to every 15 minutes ; Saturday service added in early morning and after 11 p.m. to provide all day 15 minute frequency ; Sunday service will increase to every 15 minutes until approximately 7:30 p.m. After that, service will return to every 30 minutes.

ROUTE 7 - Increase in scheduled trips will provide 15 minute weekday service until 6 p.m. After 6 p.m., late night trips have been added to provide 20 minute service for the remainder of the service day ; Saturday service has been increased to provide 20 minute frequency throughout the day ; Sunday service has been increased to provide 30 minute frequency throughout the day.

ROUTE 8 - Service Discontinued

ROUTE 10 - All Route 10 buses will provide Accessible Low Floor (ALF) service ; Sunday service will be increased to provide 30 minute frequency trips between 10:45 a.m. and 6 p.m. After 6 p.m., the schedule will transition to every 60 minutes until the end of the service day.

ROUTE 22 - The last evening trip on weekdays and weekends departing Mumford Terminal will have its last stop changed to the Ragged Lake Transit Centre and will not provide service to Exhibition Park ; Route 22 will also see additional schedule adjustments, check the Riders Guide for details.

ROUTE 33 - Route 33 will see minor schedule adjustments, check the Riders Guide for details.

ROUTE 41 - Service reinstates August 26.

ROUTE 42 - Service reinstates August 26.

ROUTES 61 & 14 - Additional evening trips added between Saint Mary’s University and Bradorian. See Riders Guide for details.

ROUTE 80 - Additional evening trips between Halifax and Sackville on Saturday and Sunday. See Riders Guide for details.

ROUTE 89 - Gary Martin Drive and Innovation Drive will now be serviced in both directions. See Riders Guide for details.

ROUTE 90 - Service extended along Peakview Way to service retail area. Route 90 will see minor schedule adjustments, check the Riders Guide for details.

Routes 10, 59, and 68 are now designated ALF.

[halifaxboyns]

I'd like to suggest we rethink how bus stops function in HRM and take an idea from Montreal in this photo. This is an actual bus stop in Montreal:

[Keith P.]

Sorry, but that is about the dumbest idea for a bus stop I could possibly imagine.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Sorry, but that is about the dumbest idea for a bus stop I could possibly imagine.

Apparently it's actually an art installation near a bus stop, but not actually a bus stop.

This, on the other hand...

[halifaxboyns]

I think it's awesome - but I'd end up never getting on the bus. I'd just sit and swing all day...that or try to swing as hard as I could and leap onto the bus! So long as there were still conventional seats, I'd love to see an art installation like this at the Dartmouth Terminal or somewhere...would be fun! It certainly beats this public art in Edmonton.

[Keith P.]

We would have lighthouses. Or giant lobsters.

[pblaauw]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

This, on the other hand...

Great. If you survive bleeding to death, because your legs got sheered off by a passing vehicle, or you miss your bus, because you were hidden behind the non-transparent ad, you can have hours of fun.

But it doesn't seem at all practical to me.

[visualman57]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Sorry, but that is about the dumbest idea for a bus stop I could possibly imagine.

didn't your mother ever teach you that if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by visualman57

didn't your mother ever teach you that if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything?

It is our duty to speak out against bad ideas that cost us tax dollars.