General Updates and News

[someone123]

I've always thought that the Historic Properties problems were really caused by Cogswell. It's a huge dead space that effectively cuts down dramatically on the density of the area.

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

...

We would have been better off with the highway than the Disney-fied faux-historic waterfront we have now.

It would have been even more expensive to remove a whole highway.

[ILoveHalifax]

More than likely had the road been built along the waterfront connecting the MacKay to the North West Arm Bridge we would not be looking to remove it. It would have had a number of beautiful office buildings built on both sides by now and the waterfront would have been developed to be a very attractive part of the city.
We'd be missing Morses Tea and Historic Properties but it would probably work very effectively.
After all the Pacey Plan has its flaws as we know.
I suspect had the Pacey Plan not been put into effect we would not have the horrific traffic tie ups on Quinpool, Chebucto, Bayers, and Kempt.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

More than likely had the road been built along the waterfront connecting the MacKay to the North West Arm Bridge we would not be looking to remove it. It would have had a number of beautiful office buildings built on both sides by now and the waterfront would have been developed to be a very attractive part of the city.
We'd be missing Morses Tea and Historic Properties but it would probably work very effectively.
After all the Pacey Plan has its flaws as we know.
I suspect had the Pacey Plan not been put into effect we would not have the horrific traffic tie ups on Quinpool, Chebucto, Bayers, and Kempt.

This is really my point. Though I cannot say whether the traffic on those streets would be better, if the original plan had gone forward we would be dealing with a far different set of issues today. We likely would have had an Arm Bridge and a very different downtown and mainland west suburb. It could be better or potentially worse but we just do not know. We have bought into the Pacey vision of what d/t ought to be without any real understanding of the alternatives.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

This is really my point. Though I cannot say whether the traffic on those streets would be better, if the original plan had gone forward we would be dealing with a far different set of issues today. We likely would have had an Arm Bridge and a very different downtown and mainland west suburb. It could be better or potentially worse but we just do not know. We have bought into the Pacey vision of what d/t ought to be without any real understanding of the alternatives.

Many other cities implemented a Harbour Drive type of solution to traffic and regretted it though. Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland (OR), and Toronto are some examples. I don't know of any examples of a waterfront highway that is nice to spend time around and is surrounded by good development. They tend to be surrounded by parking lots and bunker-like buildings.

I do think there is/was a third way that rarely gets any attention in this polarized debate. It would have been possibly to build more bridges to the suburbs without touching much of the downtown area or South End. Even just the bridge over the Northwest Arm would have been a huge win, and it wouldn't necessarily have had to be connected to an extensive highway network on either end.

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

More than likely had the road been built along the waterfront connecting the MacKay to the North West Arm Bridge we would not be looking to remove it. It would have had a number of beautiful office buildings built on both sides by now and the waterfront would have been developed to be a very attractive part of the city. ...

Maybe I'm just not very aware of any successful examples of harbourfront highways through cities. The only ones I hear about are ones that are being torn out because they're poor city-building moves. Could be just the way that urban design is framed these days, so I'd be interested in learning about some successful examples.

Know of any?

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

Maybe I'm just not very aware of any successful examples of harbourfront highways through cities. The only ones I hear about are ones that are being torn out because they're poor city-building moves. Could be just the way that urban design is framed these days, so I'd be interested in learning about some successful examples.

Know of any?

The only thing I can even think of that even remotely fits that bill is Havana's Malecon, and that's a VERY different city, and it's not really a highway so much as an arterial road. It's also a major pedestrian thoroughfare with vast sidewalks.

[ILoveHalifax]

I don't know what the original plan was but apparently it was not an elevated highway like the Gardner, as Cogswell is street level as it approaches downtown.
I would have hoped for a nice tree lined boulevard as in Fort Lauderdale.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

I don't know what the original plan was but apparently it was not an elevated highway like the Gardner, as Cogswell is street level as it approaches downtown.
I would have hoped for a nice tree lined boulevard as in Fort Lauderdale.

This was the proposal dated May 31, 1963:

[Ziobrop]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

I don't know what the original plan was but apparently it was not an elevated highway like the Gardner, as Cogswell is street level as it approaches downtown.
I would have hoped for a nice tree lined boulevard as in Fort Lauderdale.

It was to be below grade - Like the Decarie expressway in Montreal.

See more over here:
http://halifaxbloggers.ca/builthalifax/2015/01/harbour-drive/

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

I don't know what the original plan was but apparently it was not an elevated highway like the Gardner, as Cogswell is street level as it approaches downtown.
I would have hoped for a nice tree lined boulevard as in Fort Lauderdale.

But consider the differences between Halifax and Fort Lauderdale:

1. Fort Lauderdale's waterfront isn't downtown, but three miles away from downtown.

2. Outside of the high-rise hotels, etc., it's a much more low-density, suburban style city than central Halifax, so auto-oriented infrastructure like this is more in keeping with their built environment.

3. Their highway connects to the greater Miami-Dade highway system, so traffic volumes make a highway a more justifiable use of waterfront land.

4. Fort Lauderdale sucks.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Ziobrop

It was to be below grade - Like the Decarie expressway in Montreal.

See more over here:
http://halifaxbloggers.ca/builthalifax/2015/01/harbour-drive/

I think it would have been a real improvement.

It could have been made into something like this:

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/9/7520805/hamburg-highway

[ILoveHalifax]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

But consider the differences between Halifax and Fort Lauderdale:

1. Fort Lauderdale's waterfront isn't downtown, but three miles away from downtown.

2. Outside of the high-rise hotels, etc., it's a much more low-density, suburban style city than central Halifax, so auto-oriented infrastructure like this is more in keeping with their built environment.

3. Their highway connects to the greater Miami-Dade highway system, so traffic volumes make a highway a more justifiable use of waterfront land.

4. Fort Lauderdale sucks.

To each their own. I like Fort Lauderdale, lived there for 17 years and will move there this summer again. It is my favorite city in the USA.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by Ziobrop

It was to be below grade - Like the Decarie expressway in Montreal.

See more over here:
http://halifaxbloggers.ca/builthalifax/2015/01/harbour-drive/

This is the first I've heard of the highway being below grade. I had heard that the "plaza" in front of the Supreme Court building was originally part of an overhead highway. Where would it have gone below grade? It would have been nice if they had explored a tunnel option. Say the southbound carriage under Hollis and the northbound under Lower Water. May have even been able to save some buildings but I guess it would have been a far more expensive proposition.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Ziobrop

It was to be below grade - Like the Decarie expressway in Montreal.

See more over here:
http://halifaxbloggers.ca/builthalifax/2015/01/harbour-drive/

I enjoy seeing all the information that you have found relating to the Harbour Drive. Although I am glad this freeway wasn't built in Halifax, I often wish that a subway would have been built instead with less destruction of the downtown area. I like to imagine a short subway loop around the downtown (underground) then it could have gone close to the rail cut (on the Southwood Drive side) followed the CN tracks to the Halifax Shopping Centre and then returned down Chebucto Road (underground). At some point a branch line could have gone under the Harbour to Dartmouth.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

What an embarrassment. I used to cross there every day on the way to work. It just screams "Screw you, pedestrians."

But of course, if we had never razed a whole neighbourhood's worth of buildings and streets in order to build that atrocity called the Cogswell Interchange, we'd have a normal street crossing there, the Historic Properties and the Granville Mall wouldn't be orphaned at the north edge of downtown, and the whole area would probably be a whole lot healthier.

The quick fix will be to put in a proper walk signal there. The real fix will be the Cogswell redevelopment.

Yes. I just don't understand why there isn't a cross walk put in there, given all the pedestrians hit this past year.

Sometimes, I honestly have no idea what the planners and bureaucrats running this city are thinking.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

I think Halifax has a great Harbour Waterfront and it seems to be appreciated by locals and tourists as shown by the opinions on Tripadvisor - http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attraction_Rev...x_Regional_Municipality_Nova_Scotia.html

I think that if the Harbour Drive was built as a freeway it would have been just as bad as the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto. I think the real mistake was in also eliminating the planned Northwest Arm Drive and bridge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Arm_Drive), which would have provided a direct route for trucks and cars to the 102 highway without requiring them to go through the downtown area. This could have been built without the Harbour Drive/Cogswell Interchange and would have saved interesting heritage buildings such as the Pentagon building - http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=143037&page=7

Yep. The Gardiner is probably one of the biggest mistakes in Toronto's planning history.

It completely ruined the Toronto waterfront for generations; and it's still a mess. Completely cuts off the core of downtown from the waterfront, eats up valuable real estate that could be used for more development, and also has created a thick cloud of polluted air you must negotiate to reach the waterfront on foot.

[counterfactual]

I posted this on another thread, but thought I'd start a discussion here.

The sidewalk clearance in this city has been a complete disaster this year.

Calls flooding in:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1271470-calls-flood-in-on-state-of-halifax-sidewalks-streets

Protests:
http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/icy-sidewalks-spark-protest-in-halifax-1.2257631

And private contracted sidewalk clearers are still just laying down little bits of gravel, which DOES NOT melt the ice. Roads and fully clear-- mainly from salt being laid regularly-- and yet sidewalks on main streets on the peninsula are like sheets of ice.

What is the problem? Is salt very expensive, so the private contractors are willing to spread it on roads, but not sidewalks? So they're using gravel instead, which is completely useless?

To me, this is a big economic development issue. We want downtown businesses to survive and flourish and we want the population of the peninsula to grow, but that is NEVER going to happen, if for several months every year, residents cannot actually traverse from their homes to businesses.

How are businesses downtown supposed to survive when the city's horrid sidewalk clearance is making shopping and commerce downtown literally dangerous?

I'm completely able bodied and young, and I've been finding it completely dangerous. I can only imagine how older or disabled residents might be finding it.

This is the sort of thing, that gets Mayors and Councillors turfed from office.

[Keith P.]

I believe they have given up trying to remove the 6"-8" of ice that covers most sidewalks. The storm 2 weeks ago that had snow followed by rain followed by -10 degree temps meant that unless the walkways were cleared during or immediately following the rain, it became a solid block of ice. I know I spread 30kg of salt on my sidewalk of about 60' in length Saturday, and it did nothing at all to the ice. It is going to be there until spring since it is too thick to even chop, unless you have some sort of power tool.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I believe they have given up trying to remove the 6"-8" of ice that covers most sidewalks. The storm 2 weeks ago that had snow followed by rain followed by -10 degree temps meant that unless the walkways were cleared during or immediately following the rain, it became a solid block of ice. I know I spread 30kg of salt on my sidewalk of about 60' in length Saturday, and it did nothing at all to the ice. It is going to be there until spring since it is too thick to even chop, unless you have some sort of power tool.

I put salt on 4" thick ice and the concentration was such that I now see concrete in less than 48 hours. As the days get longer and the sun shines the concrete heats up and more ice can be removed. The side streets are a mess, a plow would quickly break the ice - my shovel and muscles moved over 20 feet of 3-4" ice on the road. Butts has decided not to spend any more money and the councillors are ignoring public sentiment.