Halifax Traffic

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by q12

Has Halifax traffic improved significantly in the past month?

Interesting feedback from commuters on reddit since the opening of the 107 (Burnside Expy):

https://www.reddit.com/r/halifax/comments/1iili15/trafficpraise/

Anecdotally, I would say yes it has been fine for the past while. In addition to improvements like the Burnside Expressway, we've also been without construction projects gumming things up.

Further to a comment Drybrain made earlier, I think Halifax's transportation network is actually fine when it's working. The problem is that there is almost no slack in the system, so when you get lane drops from various road projects compounding on each other then things go from fine to painful very quickly.

[mleblanc]

Originally Posted by q12

Has Halifax traffic improved significantly in the past month?

Interesting feedback from commuters on reddit since the opening of the 107 (Burnside Expy):

https://www.reddit.com/r/halifax/comments/1iili15/trafficpraise/

I've seen a noticeable improvement on my commute from downtown to Bedford most mornings. Got to give credit where it's due, this project seems like a huge success.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

The Dutch Village Road Complete Street project will soon be underway. Area residents are receiving notice of a start date of April 14th, should weather cooperate. No end date is provided. The project will include new sidewalks and bikeways on both sides of the street. Proper bus stops and streetscaping along with traffic calming measures and changes to parking are all planned.

[bartekci]

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

The Dutch Village Road Complete Street project will soon be underway. Area residents are receiving notice of a start date of April 14th, should weather cooperate. No end date is provided. The project will include new sidewalks and bikeways on both sides of the street. Proper bus stops and streetscaping along with traffic calming measures and changes to parking are all planned.

Councillor has also advised me that 40km/hr speed limits will begin installation throughout Fairview the same week (also unclear on how long it'll take). It'll be a good year for improved road safety in Fairview.

(Yes, I am aware that speed limits don't slow traffic down, but it's a good suggestion. I'll measure it again and compare with my last report https://github.com/bartek/hfxspeeds/tree/main/B3N2H2)

[Keith P.]

Yesterday I had the unfortunate situation of needing to get from Dartmouth to central Halifax just before 5PM, then returning to Dartmouth shortly thereafter. Before I retired this was not uncommon so I was used to typical traffic, which was naturally heavy but usually moving consistently unless there was an incident somewhere. Not yesterday though. Getting to the Macdonald bridge plaza was an ordeal in itself as Wyse Rd was a parking lot, of the type usually seen during morning rush. Once I had to return to Dartmouth, the usual nonsense on North St made that ordeal even worse, with vehicles blocking intersections, jumping lanes, trying to enter when they should not, all of the usual bad behaviors that were once either policed or at least not done as per some sort of social contract. It was ridiculous. At no point did I see any incident that would have led me to believe there was anything out of the ordinary other than just regular volumes. But I cannot believe that was the new normal either. Why so many people would be wanting to go to Halifax at that hour remains a mystery.

[q12]

^
According to TomTom Live Traffic Data we hit 104% Congestion level yesterday afternoon. Both the Bi-Hi and the Mackay Bridge had major delays due to construction/accidents.

Update: Hwy 102 Northbound at Exit 2b is closed until further notice. Detour in place.

Source:
https://twitter.com/hfxtraffic/status/1924964873600983422

[OldDartmouthMark]

An unfortunate symptom of previous governments’ lack of foresight and action to future-proof our infrastructure capacity, combined with recent unprecedented population growth.

[someone123]

Just my two cents but my feeling is that central Halifax is never going to be a fast and convenient area for cars, so the priority there should be to improve transit. The biggest project currently seems to be the Robie Street corridor which should eventually turn into some kind of higher-order transit. A streetcar would probably have enough capacity and would come with a lot of benefits.

When it comes to other areas it is possible to improve highways and arterial roads. One obvious problem is the 111-102 link which looks partly like infrastructure designed for a small city in the 1940's. The Windsor Street Exchange project didn't really seem to address this. The MacKay replacement's been discussed too so it seems now is the time.

The Burnside Connector was needed and is now done, so that's one success story.

The city would get bonus points for planning a Robie Street connection over the Northwest Arm and LRT out to Clayton Park but those seem like pipe dreams in the current environment, even though they shouldn't be.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by someone123

Just my two cents but my feeling is that central Halifax is never going to be a fast and convenient area for cars, so the priority there should be to improve transit. The biggest project currently seems to be the Robie Street corridor which should eventually turn into some kind of higher-order transit. A streetcar would probably have enough capacity and would come with a lot of benefits..

One thing that struck me yesterday was when we had to resort to side streets to avoid North, which wasn’t moving hardly at all. When we got up to Agricola it wasn’t moving much either which I found hard to understand until I remembered that the geniuses at HRM planning put in those roundabouts on North Park feeding into Agricola which makes it attractive to go that route to North St instead of going up to the main artery, Robie. It struck me that Agricola would be a fine choice for a N/S transit-only street if you could get cars off it. Up the hill from DT, along Agricola. It’s all good until you get to North and then it all falls apart. That street needs significant property acquisition and widening down to the Macdonald.

[ArchAficionado]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

One thing that struck me yesterday was when we had to resort to side streets to avoid North, which wasn’t moving hardly at all. When we got up to Agricola it wasn’t moving much either which I found hard to understand until I remembered that the geniuses at HRM planning put in those roundabouts on North Park feeding into Agricola which makes it attractive to go that route to North St instead of going up to the main artery, Robie. It struck me that Agricola would be a fine choice for a N/S transit-only street if you could get cars off it. Up the hill from DT, along Agricola. It’s all good until you get to North and then it all falls apart. That street needs significant property acquisition and widening down to the Macdonald.

It's probably not worth it to invest in widening North when the MacDonald will always be somewhat of a bottleneck. You're right to point out Agricola would be a sensible transit corridor however.

[gehrhardt]

While sitting in traffic downtown last evening (1/2 hour to get from Marginal rd to Spring Garden) I started thinking about a few minor (non-transit) changes that may impact traffic during peak times.

- More "no right turn on red" intersections at peak times. I sat on Morris st between Lower Water and Hollis for over a dozen cycles of the traffic lights before getting through. Something is up with the timing of the lights there. There is enough of a delay that one or two cars can turn onto Morris after the red, blocking the traffic going straight.

- This won't be popular with the Port Authority or the truckers, but until there is a permanent solution to the issue with the transport trucks downtown (like increased rail use at the south end terminal), maybe ban them on the downtown streets between 4:00 and 5:00 or something?

- This will never happen, but having actual traffic police at busy intersections, like they do in Europe or Asia. Just keeping people from blocking cross traffic at intersections would make a difference. I know, the cost is too high, and the number of police wouldn't be able to support it.

Oh, and pedestrians, if there is a button for you to press at a crosswalk, PRESS THE BUTTON. For that matter, actually use a crosswalk.

Just some thoughts from when I was sitting immobile in traffic.

[Empire]

Originally Posted by gehrhardt

While sitting in traffic downtown last evening (1/2 hour to get from Marginal rd to Spring Garden) I started thinking about a few minor (non-transit) changes that may impact traffic during peak times.

- More "no right turn on red" intersections at peak times. I sat on Morris st between Lower Water and Hollis for over a dozen cycles of the traffic lights before getting through. Something is up with the timing of the lights there. There is enough of a delay that one or two cars can turn onto Morris after the red, blocking the traffic going straight.

- This won't be popular with the Port Authority or the truckers, but until there is a permanent solution to the issue with the transport trucks downtown (like increased rail use at the south end terminal), maybe ban them on the downtown streets between 4:00 and 5:00 or something?

- This will never happen, but having actual traffic police at busy intersections, like they do in Europe or Asia. Just keeping people from blocking cross traffic at intersections would make a difference. I know, the cost is too high, and the number of police wouldn't be able to support it.

Oh, and pedestrians, if there is a button for you to press at a crosswalk, PRESS THE BUTTON. For that matter, actually use a crosswalk.

Just some thoughts from when I was sitting immobile in traffic.

There used to be traffic police at the Armdale Rotary c/w whistle. I agree that it would be helpful at a few intersections to have traffic police to help move traffic that would otherwise be stagnant. HRM has to really think outside the box to address the traffic woes that are increasing daily.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by gehrhardt

- This won't be popular with the Port Authority or the truckers, but until there is a permanent solution to the issue with the transport trucks downtown (like increased rail use at the south end terminal), maybe ban them on the downtown streets between 4:00 and 5:00 or something?

This is a good one (I'd say between 4 and 6) and I can't imagine that the inconvenience to the port/trucking would be so great it can't be dealt with by shuffling some transport to non-peak times.

[mleblanc]

Originally Posted by Empire

HRM has to really think outside the box to address the traffic woes that are increasing daily.

Investing in public transit is hardly thinking outside of the box. The solutions they spent 20 years mulling over have yet to be fully implemented, and are already out of date. The answer is incredibly simple, and right in front of our eyes.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by mleblanc

Investing in public transit is hardly thinking outside of the box. The solutions they spent 20 years mulling over have yet to be fully implemented, and are already out of date. The answer is incredibly simple, and right in front of our eyes.

This.

[Patrick Matthews]

Not directly related to current conversation, but an observation that the Akerly southerly backups 3-5pm have been shifted to Glendale/4c westerly 3:30 - 6pm backups now.
The exit between 4c and fall river should have been done 30 years ago.

[eastcoastal]

Obviously a different scale, but NYC implemented congestion pricing this year for private vehicles entering Manhattan to fund transit improvements. According to NYT, preliminary results not related to the funds being generated include faster transit times within the congestion zone, faster travel times for private vehicles within the congestion zone with no negative impact to areas outside the zone (they'd thought maybe it would just move traffic elsewhere), increased transit ridership, and more reliable transit. It doesn't look like there's negative impact to visitors to businesses within the zone, but probably too early to know for sure, and while there's an increase in bike trips within the zone, there's an increase to bike trips city-wide that might be related to roll-out of bike share there.

Meanwhile, we've removed tolls from the bridges, which might've acted like a form of congestion pricing. I wonder if removing the tolls will actually make traffic worse.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

Obviously a different scale, but NYC implemented congestion pricing this year for private vehicles entering Manhattan to fund transit improvements. According to NYT, preliminary results not related to the funds being generated include faster transit times within the congestion zone, faster travel times for private vehicles within the congestion zone with no negative impact to areas outside the zone (they'd thought maybe it would just move traffic elsewhere), increased transit ridership, and more reliable transit. It doesn't look like there's negative impact to visitors to businesses within the zone, but probably too early to know for sure, and while there's an increase in bike trips within the zone, there's an increase to bike trips city-wide that might be related to roll-out of bike share there.

Meanwhile, we've removed tolls from the bridges, which might've acted like a form of congestion pricing. I wonder if removing the tolls will actually make traffic worse.

Considering how small a percentage of people entered that part of Manhattan via private vehicle prior to the change and how much transit ridership increased, we can safely say there won't be a negative impact to visitor numbers. Especially since the city will be a more appealing place to visit with fewer cars clogging the streets.

But we can also safely say that data doesn't seem to influence people who are against the idea since we've had this discussion before. The data has been discussed (NYC is far from the first to have such a program) all the talking points have been debunked, and no one changes their mind. Which is kind of the same thing in NYC where there was significant opposition until after the program actually opened and people experienced the results at which point the public embraced it. Some people just base their position solely on their emotional response to an idea and only experiences can make them feel differently. They can't adjust their views based on rational ideas no matter how compelling the data or arguments. Which is something we just have to accept and move forward with the process of real-world demonstration.

With the bridge tolls, while it was a big mistake to remove them, I doubt it will actually increase peak traffic since traffic is already getting to the point of being capacity constrained. So it will likely just increase off-peak traffic and shift the pressure points where peak congestion occurs. The only really big difference is that we'll have lost a revenue source that will have to be made up by general revenues.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by gehrhardt

- This won't be popular with the Port Authority or the truckers, but until there is a permanent solution to the issue with the transport trucks downtown (like increased rail use at the south end terminal), maybe ban them on the downtown streets between 4:00 and 5:00 or something?

I wonder if this is happening? A project like this has been discussed for many years.
https://signalhfx.ca/millbrook-first-nat...il-company-for-inland-shipping-terminal/

It seems like a lot of these projects are on the radar but for whatever reasons they take a long time to implement. The "nice to have" projects of 20 years ago are now badly needed. Imagine how much cheaper it would have been to fix Robie Street back in 2005, or at least acquire the land; the property values must have been a small fraction of what they are now.

[miniborder]

Originally Posted by gehrhardt

I sat on Morris st between Lower Water and Hollis for over a dozen cycles of the traffic lights before getting through. Something is up with the timing of the lights there. There is enough of a delay that one or two cars can turn onto Morris after the red, blocking the traffic going straight.

It's even worse further up at Morris/Barrington. At rush hour, the east/northbound buses trying to turn left combined with heavy pedestrian traffic contribute to a lot of this intersection's woes. I've seen 4+ buses stacked nose to tail trying to turn left (while pedestrians cross the entire light cycle), backing up eastbound traffic all the way back towards Queen. Then you can also sometimes combine that with the longshoremen illegally parking wherever and whenever they please - it's carnage. It would have been prudent for the city to consider an advanced left turn to get traffic off Morris onto Barrington.

That being said, this bottleneck (and the one you described) will resolve itself in a few years when Morris turns into a one-way street (eastbound) as part of the new University/Morris protected bikeway. The plans indicate that all transit routes will be moved off Morris, and I imagine there will be a dedicated left turning lane alongside a through/right turn lane.