Joint Regional Transportation Agency

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I think Calgary, Edmonton and KWC are great examples to show that we're not too small to justify higher order transit, but not so much that we need it at our size.

I would just say that it's obviously in the menu of options for a city of Halifax's size and growth prospects, while a full-sized subway is not. Beyond that you have to look at specifics which could have a 10x impact on cost. The first pass is just what's order-of-magnitude possible, which is $1B in Halifax but not $10B.

In Halifax the higher-order transit could be used in a smaller geographical area mostly to serve the difficult to serve core, with bus routes serving outlying areas. There are some 5-8 km routes that could potentially be very useful and they shouldn't be compared to proposals for systems of 10s of km.

We'd either need to spend a lot of money on widening street corridors to give an LRT or BRT dedicated space (while their streets were already wide enough) or we'd need even pricier tunneling. Or both. I'd personally support spending on such a project, but we have to acknowledge the pragmatics that it's hard to get the city and province to fork out for transit. So for all the concerns about the political feasibility of congestion pricing (which yes, are justified), building rail doesn't avoid political obstacles either.

Part of what is politically difficult is that there are specific bottlenecks causing problems, and wildly different demand for transit vs. roads, but there's also a desire to broadly serve the region and to be seen getting good bang for the buck. Eventually you need to tackle the tough problems though. I wonder if tunneling would really be so prohibitively expensive if used strategically along relatively short segments. Cogswell was a good opportunity to build some kind of underground infrastructure.

IanWatson's example of buying up North Street is a good one. Road widening is in the "accessible" list of options while tunneling is "expensive". But the land acquisition costs in Halifax could be substantial compared to tunneling for a similar length. I would guess elevated rail in a road median isn't necessarily more expensive than buying up a row of peninsula houses of similar length.

[Nouvellecosse]

It definitely wouldn't be prohibitively expensive in terms of what we could afford. I'm more worried about what decision makers are "willing" to afford. The tackling of tough problems has not been our strong suit as of late. Everything has to be conventional wisdom with widespread precedents. Bold, innovative solutions based on our own unique circumstances (my favourite kind) aren't welcome.

[JET]

Originally Posted by someone123

I would just say that it's obviously in the menu of options for a city of Halifax's size and growth prospects, while a full-sized subway is not. Beyond that you have to look at specifics which could have a 10x impact on cost. The first pass is just what's order-of-magnitude possible, which is $1B in Halifax but not $10B.

In Halifax the higher-order transit could be used in a smaller geographical area mostly to serve the difficult to serve core, with bus routes serving outlying areas. There are some 5-8 km routes that could potentially be very useful and they shouldn't be compared to proposals for systems of 10s of km.



Part of what is politically difficult is that there are specific bottlenecks causing problems, and wildly different demand for transit vs. roads, but there's also a desire to broadly serve the region and to be seen getting good bang for the buck. Eventually you need to tackle the tough problems though. I wonder if tunneling would really be so prohibitively expensive if used strategically along relatively short segments. Cogswell was a good opportunity to build some kind of underground infrastructure.

IanWatson's example of buying up North Street is a good one. Road widening is in the "accessible" list of options while tunneling is "expensive". But the land acquisition costs in Halifax could be substantial compared to tunneling for a similar length. I would guess elevated rail in a road median isn't necessarily more expensive than buying up a row of peninsula houses of similar length.

I don't think North Street is the problem, the MacDoanld bridge is the bottleneck. Once off the bridge the traffic starts to flow better.

[IanWatson]

I think we're pretty close to having our first true BRT line on Robie. The land acquisition seems to be going along a fair pace and design work is being done. Hopefully it's designed in a way that it can be converted to LRT in the future.

What worries me is that it seems like the long-range transit planning is lagging behind other projects that are going to affect transit options and demand.

For example, Suburban Plan is likely to come before the JRT plan. I don't want Suburban Plan to be delayed, because it's desperately needed, but it's a huge missed opportunity that it won't fully be informed by long-range transit plans.

I think one of the biggest misses to-date in what has been discussed for transit is Main Street in Dartmouth. It always seems like it's overlooked because "there's no demand there", which is so emblematic of the backwards way we think about transit here. Right now it would be easy to acquire the land and lay out a light rail system from Cherry Brook all the way to Mic Mac Mall (and maybe even Burnside or the Shannon Park ferry location) and then upzone the crap out of the whole stretch. Development would be built to link into the system and people would then be able to move in with the idea that their life could be built around transit. Instead HRM will wait until that stretch is built out and has people living there, and then find it very expensive to acquire the appropriate land and all of the residents will already be entrenched in their lifestyle not focused on transit.

In contrast, you have places in Europe and China where the higher order transit is literally the first thing built during greenfield development. Like LRT and subway stations run to empty fields. It might seem wasteful to have it sitting there unused for a few years, but it allows everything else to be designed and built with transit at the forefront.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by JET

I don't think North Street is the problem, the MacDoanld bridge is the bottleneck. Once off the bridge the traffic starts to flow better.

Not on North St it doesn't. Why do you think traffic bottlenecks on the bridge? There are no obstacles or stop signals on it.

[Keith P.]

I was going to mention this earlier but forgot: recently WGBH Boston, the PBS station, posted a series of long (1 hr. +) podcast episodes on YouTube about the history of The Big Dig. They are unfortunately not video podcasts so all you see is a lot of similar stock period footage of Boston traffic in the area along with a few news clips and interviews of people involved, but even at that, I found it fascinating. From finding the political will to do it, to securing the funding (in the end it was $24 Billion!) to the engineering and managerial problems associated with doing something that really had never been done before. It was a huge undertaking. I think fixing our problems would be an even bigger task because at at least Big Dig was concentrated mostly in one area, whereas our problems with infrastructure are pretty much everywhere thanks to decades of ignoring the need to expand it. Still, I recommend taking the time to listen to all of this. Episode 1 is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ9w...RpZyBwb2RjYXN0

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Not on North St it doesn't. Why do you think traffic bottlenecks on the bridge? There are no obstacles or stop signals on it.

I agree, North St is a bottleneck for sure. Bridge traffic does flow pretty good.

[JET]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Not on North St it doesn't. Why do you think traffic bottlenecks on the bridge? There are no obstacles or stop signals on it.

The Halifax bound traffic in the morning is stalled in the right lane because of the dockyard traffic being backed up. Left lane traffic moves OK, left and right to Gottingen, and straight up to North. Some buses to downtown take left lane over, then move right to get downtown. The right lane is as slow as molasses.
What route do you take in the morning?

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Originally Posted by JET

I don't think North Street is the problem, the MacDoanld bridge is the bottleneck. Once off the bridge the traffic starts to flow better.

The one or two lane(s) exiting the Macdonald have three or four directional options on the Halifax side, ie. continue up North St., circle down to Barrington, left or right onto Gottingen St. A quick dispersal of heavy traffic can occur. However, evening rush hour in particular can back up as traffic heads across the peninsula to the Armdale roundabout. I'm not in favour of altering either of the Macdonald or North Street. The real problem (good public transit aside) is the undersized MacKay bridge and/or the lack of a third crossing which forces drivers to mentally roll the dice on which route may be less of a hassle on any give day.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

I think we're pretty close to having our first true BRT line on Robie. The land acquisition seems to be going along a fair pace and design work is being done. Hopefully it's designed in a way that it can be converted to LRT in the future.

What worries me is that it seems like the long-range transit planning is lagging behind other projects that are going to affect transit options and demand.

For example, Suburban Plan is likely to come before the JRT plan. I don't want Suburban Plan to be delayed, because it's desperately needed, but it's a huge missed opportunity that it won't fully be informed by long-range transit plans.

I think one of the biggest misses to-date in what has been discussed for transit is Main Street in Dartmouth. It always seems like it's overlooked because "there's no demand there", which is so emblematic of the backwards way we think about transit here. Right now it would be easy to acquire the land and lay out a light rail system from Cherry Brook all the way to Mic Mac Mall (and maybe even Burnside or the Shannon Park ferry location) and then upzone the crap out of the whole stretch. Development would be built to link into the system and people would then be able to move in with the idea that their life could be built around transit. Instead HRM will wait until that stretch is built out and has people living there, and then find it very expensive to acquire the appropriate land and all of the residents will already be entrenched in their lifestyle not focused on transit.

In contrast, you have places in Europe and China where the higher order transit is literally the first thing built during greenfield development. Like LRT and subway stations run to empty fields. It might seem wasteful to have it sitting there unused for a few years, but it allows everything else to be designed and built with transit at the forefront.

If you were to run for city council in my area I'd vote for you on this alone. Well, this and the fact that you didn't make me read a 'vision statement'.

[Nouvellecosse]

North St. acts as somewhat of a bottle neck in that when I take the bus route #3 across the bridge during off peak periods, it moves at a steady pace until it reaches the queue at North and Gottingen before running slowly from there until past Windsor. But I'm not sure that's because of the street width so much as it is because of the frequency of intersections (and cross walks, driveways, etc.) Widening the street would give a little more temporary car storage space for the queues, but whether it would improve the average speed much is harder to tell. It definitely wouldn't help much in terms of capacity since the bridge only has two lanes in the peak direction and a lot of traffic uses Barrinton or Gottingen. Certainly more than straight up or down North. And given how many properties would be affected by a widening (with many demolished), we'd need to sure of a substantial payoff.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

I think we're pretty close to having our first true BRT line on Robie. The land acquisition seems to be going along a fair pace and design work is being done. Hopefully it's designed in a way that it can be converted to LRT in the future.

It's too bad the province didn't fund the BRT plan but stuff is still happening, and it is a big deal to have complete two-way bus lanes along Robie from Quinpool to Young. But is there any plan to link that up with Bayers and Connaught? That forms the beginnings of what looks like a good LRT alignment, and the development around Young and Robie is an example of TOD.

When I bring up tunneling I imagine having at-grade routes like this in place and asking how they could be improved by adding some underground portions, which could even be cut-and-cover sections of a few hundred meters. I also think that if there is to be rail transit it will be difficult to serve downtown well without tunnels. And I think it's worth hundreds of millions or billions to get a main transit corridor that will be in use for decades in the right place vs. a 10-15 min walk away.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

And given how many properties would be affected by a widening (with many demolished), we'd need to sure of a substantial payoff.

Another alternative is to cut traffic around there and redirect it. This could be done by making Macdonald a more transit-oriented bridge (for example 1 dedicated switching transit lane and 2 mixed lanes) after adding capacity around the MacKay where the road network may be able to handle it.

[JET]

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

The one or two lane(s) exiting the Macdonald have three or four directional options on the Halifax side, ie. continue up North St., circle down to Barrington, left or right onto Gottingen St. A quick dispersal of heavy traffic can occur. However, evening rush hour in particular can back up as traffic heads across the peninsula to the Armdale roundabout. I'm not in favour of altering either of the Macdonald or North Street. The real problem (good public transit aside) is the undersized MacKay bridge and/or the lack of a third crossing which forces drivers to mentally roll the dice on which route may be less of a hassle on any give day.

The back up of traffic going to the dockyard limits the ability to circle down to Barrington, right lane is very slow as a result.

[OldDartmouthMark]

I think this discussion proves that there are many ways in which transit/traffic/transportation could be improved in Halifax, and that the current and recent past city governments have been lacking in foresight, and the ability to just get big things done.

It hasn't always been this way. Past city governments worked with province/feds to build the rail cut, the ocean terminals, two harbour crossings, etc etc, while the recent elected city officials have concerned themselves with things like plastic bag bans, which city parks to allow tent cities to form, which streets to paint lines on to allow for bus and bicycle travel, etc. I'm being a little dramatic, but frankly I have become tired of feeling underwhelmed by the lack of accomplishment of our current city council (and reading the thoughts of many forum members, I don't think I'm alone in my opinions).

Cogswell is a step in the right direction, but it seems like a bit of a lost opportunity as there was a chance to incorporate a major transit hub, with perhaps opportunities for underground, etc. Instead they chose to basically tear down infrastructure that needed replacement anyhow, and rearrange the street grid. I'm happy that they are doing something with it, but it just seemed a little less ambitious than it should have been.

To give credit, the Bedford ferry is also a step in the right direction (although they have been talking about it for something like 30 years), and there was discussion and public consultation about commuter rail sometime in the 2000s (after which they said "but CN", and gave up on it).

Hopefully, with the province involved, something like the solutions outlined in this thread will be tackled (I hope it's more than just buses and occasional ferries). Whatever happens, future needs have to be considered, and it just needs to work well so that it improves quality of life for the people who live here.

[MastClimberPro]

As a supremely under-informed participant on this thread I'll ask a question and then let everyone kick the crap out of it for its stupidity.

Would a suspended monorail work in Halifax? It seems at first thought to have the combination of flexibility and small ground foot print to be an interesting possibility. A circuit could be run along the edge of the basin (and perhaps along the under belly of the new McKay 2.0 that's being considered) connecting Bedford, Dartmouth and the North end of Halifax. How it would interact with the southern half of the penninsula I have't the imagination to conceive. Couldn't it be an attractive, low impact and modern looking amenity?

Fire away.

[someone123]

A couple of points on the basin monorail:

- Price per km is quite high, in the hundreds of millions, so it would cost billions of dollars and lots of alternatives would cost the same or less

- If you put it along the basin, the amount of stuff within walking distance of each station will tend to be lower as there will be water on one side

I do think elevated segments should be considered a possibility when developing transit (that could be an elevated rail line, bus lane, or something else). I could see that being useful around the Joseph Howe Dr area to get around some other infrastructure (it already was done for the 102), and useful to smooth out some elevation gains in places.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by MastClimberPro

As a supremely under-informed participant on this thread I'll ask a question and then let everyone kick the crap out of it for its stupidity.

Would a suspended monorail work in Halifax? It seems at first thought to have the combination of flexibility and small ground foot print to be an interesting possibility. A circuit could be run along the edge of the basin (and perhaps along the under belly of the new McKay 2.0 that's being considered) connecting Bedford, Dartmouth and the North end of Halifax. How it would interact with the southern half of the penninsula I have't the imagination to conceive. Couldn't it be an attractive, low impact and modern looking amenity?

Fire away.

I love that idea, by the way, regardless on how much it may cost. I've ridden the ones at Disney World and Las Vegas, and found them to be smooth and very cool.

I wonder how susceptible they would be to icing up, given our typical winter weather.

That said, we're not Las Vegas, so it might be a hard sell in Halifax!

[q12]

Virtual Information Session

Join us via Zoom on Tuesday, February 13 from 6:30-8 p.m. Learn about the work to date, get an update on the Regional Transportation Plan, and ask the team your questions.

https://jrta.ca/

[Keith P.]

Meanwhile, in their infinite wisdom, the boffins at HRM Traffic have reduced the speed limit on the main artery that is the Bedford HIGHWAY to 50 km/h, thanks to lobbying from the likes of that crazed anti-traffic activist Marty Williams, who thinks he lives in an English country village.