General Updates and News

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by someone123

It is not really the fault of staff. It's their job to do a first pass at interpreting the MPS and it is not a very good document. It was first put in place in 1978 (an era when the city encouraged low-density, suburban development), has a lot of vague language and incoherent ideas like "compatibility", and doesn't do a very good job of balancing the desires of homeowners with wider regional requirements for things like urban infill to prevent sprawl.

In these cases I think it's actually good that development proposals go to regional council. An HRM by Design type system would be better but it would need more concrete and reasonable density limits that allow for a useful amount of infill.

Two things. First, you're right that the MPS is vague, rife with vague terms. In fact, it's so vague that it offers sufficient leeway and discretion for both staff and council to recommend approval on reasonable infill like this. But that's not happening. So we cannot blame the MPS for everything. If staff supported this kind of development there is enough discretion in the MPS for them to do so.

Second, why are we still applying an MPS from 1978?

Who am I to hold responsible for not fixing that, other than HRM Staff or Council?

Damn the Gods? Curse the wind? The shadows?

I'm starting to sound like a NIMBY...

So, who do we hold accountability for the "do nothing-ism" of the other 30 years since 1978?

Problem is, we're too polite in this city to demand better of our politicians and public servants. And when we do not demand better, we get this.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

I'm tired of being fair to staff and council. They've been dropping the ball for 20+ years. And they're still doing it-- 7 years of 17% urban growth, with no plan or change in sight. Whatever approvals they have been doing, recommendations like this remain a problem. There is enough discretion in the MPS to recommend approval on something like this, with minor variations in design.

As for the billions required for road widening, well, the Bayers/102 road widening will cost $1billion dollars.

And the City has already been buying up houses (19) for the project.

http://www.thecoast.ca/RealityBites/archives/2013/08/14/city-buys-another-house-on-bayers-road

http://www.thecoast.ca/RealityBites/archives/2013/08/14/city-buys-another-house-on-bayers-road

So I exaggerated, but really,it's not much of an exaggeration.

Well, it's a 500 percent exaggeration. Anyway, seriously, lots of stuff approved/underway. City council doesn't have the ability to singlehandedly change North America's culture of sprawl. It think if we look at the projects approved and proposed for the urban core, it's pretty obvious that the next decades is going to look a lot different from the previous.

[someone123]

The Centre Plan is a phase of HbD. Not sure when it will be put in place but it is designed to be a set of planning rules similar to what exists downtown now, but applied to the Peninsula and Dartmouth inside the Circumferential highway.

As far as cities go, 17% urban growth is actually pretty good, and it seems like that number is likely to go up for HRM over the next 5 or 10 years. The average in Canada from 2006-2011 was supposedly 94% suburban growth. One big part we are missing though is that suburban growth could be made a lot better than it is by changing the planning rules and by taking transit service into account from the beginning.

[Keith P.]

The reality is that Bayers Road needed to be widened 30 years ago. Those arguing against it are delusional.

The Young St block mentioned earlier is an obvious example of HRM dropping the ball. There are a few strategic bottlenecks that need to be widened as a first priority. That Young St block is one; there is another on Robie. North St would be another, but that entire street is a bottleneck, and widening it would be very expensive and disruptive, so there seems little chance of that happening.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Well, it's a 500 percent exaggeration. Anyway, seriously, lots of stuff approved/underway. City council doesn't have the ability to singlehandedly change North America's culture of sprawl. It think if we look at the projects approved and proposed for the urban core, it's pretty obvious that the next decades is going to look a lot different from the previous.

I don't disagree things are looking to be different the next ten years. I just think that given how far and long the pendulum had swung against urban planning and growth, we need to move things more aggressively in the other direction.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

The reality is that Bayers Road needed to be widened 30 years ago. Those arguing against it are delusional.

The Young St block mentioned earlier is an obvious example of HRM dropping the ball. There are a few strategic bottlenecks that need to be widened as a first priority. That Young St block is one; there is another on Robie. North St would be another, but that entire street is a bottleneck, and widening it would be very expensive and disruptive, so there seems little chance of that happening.

People advocated widening roads to address congestion are promoting delusional, or just dumb, policy.

Widening roads to address congestion is a temporary solution, and actually just leads to more congestion in the long term.

Why? Incentives.

The effort will reduce congestion in the near term, leading to easier driving, which will incentivize people to drive more and for others to purchase cars to drive. Inevitably, the new road or widened road will be congested again. A billion dollars later you're back where you started.

See the various studies cited in this report: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedF...ockholm-for-traffic-solutions-ff1212.pdf

Yes, that's the Fraser Institute Forum, by the way.

Widening the Bayers Road will be another billion dollar boondoogle with absolutely zero long term net benefit. Money is better spent elsewhere, on providing world class and more efficient means of mass public transportation, and hefty road tolls to discourage driving.

[kph06]

Sea view Landing (rebuilt building on Arthur Street), photos by me:

[ILoveHalifax]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

People advocated widening roads to address congestion are promoting delusional, or just dumb, policy.

Widening roads to address congestion is a temporary solution, and actually just leads to more congestion in the long term.



Widening the Bayers Road will be another billion dollar boondoogle with absolutely zero long term net benefit. Money is better spent elsewhere, on providing world class and more efficient means of mass public transportation, and hefty road tolls to discourage driving.

I wonder how long the widened roads will solve our traffic problems. Consider the Micmac Rotary which was reconstructed, what a couple of decades ago? Still no signs of it getting clogged like the old rotary. Think it is good for another decade or two? Should we have left it like it was? How bad would the traffic be now?



If we widened Bayers Rd would it help to solve our current traffic problems. Maybe by 2100 we will have to put a rapid transit line down the median. Maybe by 2100 we will have a population that can afford to build the rapid transit line and the ridership to sustain it.

[RyeJay]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

People advocated widening roads to address congestion are promoting delusional, or just dumb, policy.

Widening roads to address congestion is a temporary solution, and actually just leads to more congestion in the long term.

Why? Incentives.

The effort will reduce congestion in the near term, leading to easier driving, which will incentivize people to drive more and for others to purchase cars to drive. Inevitably, the new road or widened road will be congested again. A billion dollars later you're back where you started.

See the various studies cited in this report: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedF...ockholm-for-traffic-solutions-ff1212.pdf

Yes, that's the Fraser Institute Forum, by the way.

Widening the Bayers Road will be another billion dollar boondoogle with absolutely zero long term net benefit. Money is better spent elsewhere, on providing world class and more efficient means of mass public transportation, and hefty road tolls to discourage driving.

Well said.

The mounting evidence dismissing the older ideologies of infrastructure planning will hopefully help HRM move forward with stronger forms of public transit. We need to set some sensible goals for development that is transit oriented.

Until we address public transit, we won't successfully address the poor percentage of urban development compared to Halifax's suburban bloating.

Implementing congestion charges would be politically challenging, though.

[someone123]

I don't really agree that road widening produces zero benefit. As ILoveHalifax pointed out, it often takes a long time for routes to become congested again. On top of this, once they are congested, they still carry more vehicles than the old roads.

What I do think is true is that there is a downside to encouraging people to drive, even if there is no congestion, and that there's such a wide range in terms of the cost of widening projects that it doesn't really make sense to talk about widening being good or bad without looking at a specific proposal. Fixing a street might make sense if it's a bottleneck and if the land to expand it is available, and it might even be good for transit, but once you start talking about the road building projects in the hundreds of millions they need to produce a lot of benefit to be worthwhile and they need to be weighed against other major types of investment like LRT. Unfortunately in Halifax not much effort has gone in to exploring transit projects on the same scale as the largest road building projects, and bus projects are particularly bad as "alternatives" to road expansion because the buses need the roads too and are generally subject to the same congestion as cars.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

I wonder how long the widened roads will solve our traffic problems. Consider the Micmac Rotary which was reconstructed, what a couple of decades ago? Still no signs of it getting clogged like the old rotary. Think it is good for another decade or two? Should we have left it like it was? How bad would the traffic be now?



If we widened Bayers Rd would it help to solve our current traffic problems. Maybe by 2100 we will have to put a rapid transit line down the median. Maybe by 2100 we will have a population that can afford to build the rapid transit line and the ridership to sustain it.

The MicMac Rotary, replaced in the 1990s, is a bad comparison. That wasn't a road being widened.

It was basically a series of smaller collector roads leading to a massively confusing rotary that everyone hated, which was completely bulldozed and replaced with a large circumferential highway with no rotary.

Replacing a rotary with an four lane highway (6 lanes in parts) is not the same thing as widening Bayers Road. It's like comparing apples and oranges.

My point is about diminishing returns.

Yes, moving from a rotary, fed by narrow collectors, into a large 4 lane highway is going to facilitate traffic.

But if you start with a four lane highway, and want to expand to five or six, will it help long term? I'm not sure where you live, but we're only 20 years out, and yes, the Circumferential Highway DOES get heavily congested in mornings; if there is an accident, forget about it.

Do you actually think widening the 102 highway is going to solve congestion there for almost 100 years? Really?

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't really agree that road widening produces zero benefit. As ILoveHalifax pointed out, it often takes a long time for routes to become congested again. On top of this, once they are congested, they still carry more vehicles than the old roads.

What I do think is true is that there is a downside to encouraging people to drive, even if there is no congestion, and that there's such a wide range in terms of the cost of widening projects that it doesn't really make sense to talk about widening being good or bad without looking at a specific proposal. Fixing a street might make sense if it's a bottleneck and if the land to expand it is available, and it might even be good for transit, but once you start talking about the road building projects in the hundreds of millions they need to produce a lot of benefit to be worthwhile and they need to be weighed against other major types of investment like LRT. Unfortunately in Halifax not much effort has gone in to exploring transit projects on the same scale as the largest road building projects, and bus projects are particularly bad as "alternatives" to road expansion because the buses need the roads too and are generally subject to the same congestion as cars.

I'm not sure more cars on the road is a net benefit, but I get the point.

I do agree, that you need to look at specifics. A road widening may not lead to more congestion, if done in an area with zero population growth. Obviously, that's going to be an assumption of a driver-incentives-model.

100% agree with you about the lack of any serious investment or exploration of mass transit projects in HRM.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

It was basically a series of smaller collector roads leading to a massively confusing rotary that everyone hated, which was completely bulldozed and replaced with a large circumferential highway with no rotary.

I remember the Mic Mac rotary from the early 70's. However, from what I remember, the Circumferential Highway was built long before the Mic Mac rotary was replaced. The Circumferential Highway traffic flow improved immensely once the rotary was replaced with regular on and off ramps.

[musicman]

There is a very large crane being put together on the irving shipyard site up near the entrance. Any ideas?

[hoser111]

Originally Posted by musicman

There is a very large crane being put together on the irving shipyard site up near the entrance. Any ideas?

Large parking structure I believe.

[ILoveHalifax]

Do you actually think widening the 102 highway is going to solve congestion there for almost 100 years? Really?[/QUOTE]

YES!! but that is just me being delusional or dumb.

I'd much rather say, it's just me having a difference of opinion from yourself.

I don't think you can stop the growth of the city. If we had not built any roads over the last 60 years, we would not be able to handle our 450,000 population. We cannot force everybody to live the same lifestyle. Transit just does not work for everybody.

[Ziobrop]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

The reality is that Bayers Road needed to be widened 30 years ago. Those arguing against it are delusional.

Halifax does not have a traffic problem. People who say it does, have never commuted in other cities. The grossest snowiest day my commute from Bedford is still shorter, then my regular, normal weather commute in Ottawa in good weather, of roughly the same distance.

Bayers road should be widened, but not to increase capacity. the street should be made a boulevard, and the extra space should be used for bike lanes and bus pullins. the 102/103 should be joined to be a continuous 4 lane highway, the the orphaned piece converted to an arterial road, with grade intersections at Dunbrack, and Joseph Howe.

Widening roads doesn't relive congestion, it increases it. Extra capacity to the peninsula should come via Rail, with a large park and ride lot in Bedford.

[Drybrain]

I've got no problem widening 102, but streets in the peninsula? Bayers Road is the same width as Broadway in lower Manhattan. Young Street only narrows when it enters a residential neighbourhood, at which point that width is appropriate. North Street can't possibly be widened without removing dozens and dozens of houses.

At some point, a city's roads are pretty much set, especially in the urban core. This is why New York and Boston make do with two-lane thoroughfares in their oldest portions. Sometimes widening is necessary, but the goal of traffic/street planning shouldn't be a city with free-flowing automobile traffic, certainly not in the urban core. Driving sucks in the city. If driving in town is pleasurable, the city probably isn't much of a city. I'm not one of these "to hell with drivers" types, but an optimal environment for automobile traffic is not anything anyone would recognize as a good city.

[JET]

Originally Posted by kph06

Sea view Landing (rebuilt building on Arthur Street), photos by me:

this is better than what was there before; I'm struggling with something more positive to say, but I am at a loss..

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I don't really understand what's theoretically wrong with "too much lot coverage" in this case. Most of the other buildings on this street do not have very much space between them, and there is a large open park (Gorsebrook Field) adjacent to the site. What further benefit would a token patch of grass and maybe a couple of trees provide? Would the project be better if it were set back or if the sides of the lot were left open? Why?

I suspect that the zoning allows for a prescribed maximum coverage of the lot... say, 50%. I have no idea what the zone is here, or what the Municipal Planning Strategy and Land Use Bylaw say...

If this were going for a development agreement, I'd think Staff would support it based on density etc.

If, however, this is meant to be an as-of-right development, Staff cannot recommend it if it does not conform to the requirements (which may be height, minimum lot frontage, maximum lot coverage, set-back, step-backs, angle controls, and/or front, rear and side yards.