Joint Regional Transportation Agency

[q12]

Originally Posted by 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.

Completely agree.

Reducing a main artery (Halifax's original) to 50 km/h is one of the dumbest things I've seen.

How does it make any sense a that tiny narrow residential streets are 50 km/h and now the Bedford highway where most of it only has a train track along the side of the highway.







Of course the Jokes on HRM as Traffic is so bad now you're lucky if you can get 50 km/h most days...




Maybe a new Regional Transit Authority can fix this mess.

[fatscat]

I think the name needs to be changed. There are now stretches containing multi-unit residential buildings and a growing selection of retail. This ain't a highway.

There are also stretches which feel like the appropriate speed is 70km/h because there's nothing there except wide road.

It's an odd spot. Regardless, signage means little and indeed, the traffic is so wild I don't expect much people going over 50km/h anyways :-)

[HarbingerDe]

Originally Posted by fatscat

I think the name needs to be changed. There are now stretches containing multi-unit residential buildings and a growing selection of retail. This ain't a highway.

There are also stretches which feel like the appropriate speed is 70km/h because there's nothing there except wide road.

It's an odd spot. Regardless, signage means little and indeed, the traffic is so wild I don't expect much people going over 50km/h anyways :-)

Seems a little pointless to spend any time complaining about the speed limit reduction.

There are definitely stretches that should be 50km/h, and there are some stretches where it's safe to speed up to 70km/h. I don't think virtually anything will change about people's driving behaviour, especially given how lax speed limit enforcement is around here and how bad the traffic is.

I drive the Bedford bypass/magazine hill daily; it's a 90 zone but if traffic is flowing freely most people do about 110 on the straight sections.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by HarbingerDe

Seems a little pointless to spend any time complaining about the speed limit reduction.

There are definitely stretches that should be 50km/h, and there are some stretches where it's safe to speed up to 70km/h. I don't think virtually anything will change about people's driving behaviour, especially given how lax speed limit enforcement is around here and how bad the traffic is.

I drive the Bedford bypass/magazine hill daily; it's a 90 zone but if traffic is flowing freely most people do about 110 on the straight sections.

It doesn't seem that long ago that the entire Bedford Highway from the Mill Cove area to halifax was 70 km/h, and most used to drive 75 - 80, but curiously a good percentage of people drove it at 50 - 60. Used to be, if you tried to do the speed limit, you were either stuck behind somebody doing 10 - 20 under or were tailgated by somebody wanting to do 80.

The Magazine Hill is a hazard during rush hour. When I drove it every day there was typically an accident there at least once or twice a week. The blind crests would often reveal stopped traffic for the surprised half-asleep commuter doing 110 to 120, often with unpleasant results.

[Antigonish]

Is there any way to get involved in this from afar? I'm still out here in Saskatchewan but would like to know the ins-and-outs of what they're doing or if there is any way to contribute?

This past fall I did some work with the city here on their land use + transportation proposals for BRT & the housing accelerator fund rezoning. They liked my walkshed calculations and all the maps I put together, however, they never got back to me in January for any future project work going forward

I'd like to keep working on projects like that even if some of it is volunteer-based on my free time. Anything transport planning/engineering.

[TheCuriousMind]

With the traffic on this road now the 50 speed limit may actually improve flow by providing more seamless merging opportunities from slip lanes, etc.

Not that anybody will follow that speed limit anyway ... it is well known and studied that the driving factor (pun intended) in how fast people drive on a road unencumbered by traffic is the "safe speed"; that is, how fast they feel comfortable driving. It's why things like curb bump-outs (existing much to the chagrin of some of the uhhh urbanism skeptics on this forum) have been proven to reduce pedestrian fatalities, as they cause people to drive slower, and fast cars kill at a rate increasing exponentially with speed.

I digress - this will probably change nothing about how this road operates. It's been a long time since that's resembled a highway in any way!

[Jstaleness]

There was a time when you could easily do 70 or better from the Exchange to well past the Mount. This before there were lights at Flamingo I believe it is. Either way, won't miss it, as it's been said that even getting to 50 most times will be difficult. That will feel SLOW on late evenings and over night hour drives. 50 on a 4 lane road just makes you feel like you're doing 20. As long as they don't put the stupid HRM special Speed Humps in I am fine with it.

[Patrick Matthews]

Originally Posted by Jstaleness

There was a time when you could easily do 70 or better from the Exchange to well past the Mount. This before there were lights at Flamingo I believe it is. Either way, won't miss it, as it's been said that even getting to 50 most times will be difficult. That will feel SLOW on late evenings and over night hour drives. 50 on a 4 lane road just makes you feel like you're doing 20. As long as they don't put the stupid HRM special Speed Humps in I am fine with it.

Drivers (and people in general) seem to confuse the notion of a maximum.
Good conditions (and less traffic) would, and should be on the upper end of a limit, and these are usually too low outside subdivision streets. Not adjusting to conditions appears a common issue.

Perhaps the way around general stupidity is variable speed limits. If Super Store can have digital price tags throughout the store, surely we can have digital limits on the busiest arteries.

[dartell]

Hello! First time posting here, as someone whose been reading the forum for a while. As someone interested in transportation, infrastructure and development around Halifax and Nova Scotia it’s been fun keeping up with developments on here and I’m looking forward to joining the conversation.

Anyways, there’s a recording available of the JRTA information session from February 13th.
https://youtu.be/DjWd0o2DfaE?si=e16ak609UIhNj8NVp

Of note, CN has been added as a partner. Something I think a few folks on here will be happy to see, as I certainly was.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by dartell

Hello! First time posting here, as someone whose been reading the forum for a while. As someone interested in transportation, infrastructure and development around Halifax and Nova Scotia it’s been fun keeping up with developments on here and I’m looking forward to joining the conversation.

Anyways, there’s a recording available of the JRTA information session from February 13th.
https://youtu.be/DjWd0o2DfaE?si=e16ak609UIhNj8NVp

Of note, CN has been added as a partner. Something I think a few folks on here will be happy to see, as I certainly was.

Thank you for joining and yes that does sound interesting. Hopefully it portends some movement on the urban/regional rail front. Although I'll reserve my excitement until I hear more details.

[Musquodoboit County]

And of course this agency is more than transportation of people but it's also the transportation of goods (freight). So the reservation of what CN will bring is right. However the move may produce the partnership needed in the long run for the construction of multiple tracks along the Bedford basin up a total of four tracks

[Musquodoboit County]

https://images.app.goo.gl/BQCWF4q32FE34Y6M7

[Musquodoboit County]

It's a total shame that most if not almost all of Halifax rail corridors are only a single track

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Musquodoboit County

However the move may produce the partnership needed in the long run for the construction of multiple tracks along the Bedford basin up a total of four tracks

It's a nice thought, but that would be a major infrastructure cost. Most of the run from Bedford to Halifax would have to be built out into the harbour and the run through Bedford would require a widening of the corridor under Convoy Run (i.e. property acquisition and blasting), likely property acquisition through Bedford and a couple of overpasses at Hatchery Lane and Dartmouth Road.

Not to say that it won't, or can't happen, but given that CN hasn't seen the need to simply replace the previously removed second set of tracks for which the infrastructure still exists, it seems unlikely that they would expand to four, unless a lot of generous funding were to come from the feds and province (and the extra tracks would have to be designated for transit purposes that would provide little to no benefit to CN, and we're back to the motivation factor).

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

The pics below are of the Ponte 25 de Abril bridge over the Tagus river in Lisbon. If you look closely at the second/close-up pic you can see a train crossing on the lower level. My point in posting this is that with a bridge replacement project under way or soon to be under way, I hope there is consideration given to rail transportation crossing our harbour.

If you read this Mr. Fillmore, many citizens consider public transportation in HRM an issue in the same or similar league as our current housing situation.


20240226_141439 by AJ Forsythe, on Flickr



20240226_141645 by AJ Forsythe, on Flickr

[q12]

Suppose to be a plan before the year is finished.




This plan is going to be for moving 700,000 people within the Halifax region:



https://jrta.ca/

[Nouvellecosse]

Would be amazing to see commuter rail and I'd prefer that over a ferry. But now that this whole electric ferry thing seems to be moving forward, it probably means that it will replace commuter rail along the basin and making it less likely in the near future. Which I suppose is fair given how much talk there's been about commuter rail without anything happening and one can't just sit and talk forever.

[OldDartmouthMark]

If doubling the province’s population is going to be a thing, then one would have to consider that there is a need for both commuter rail and ferries. The majority of that increase would probably fall on HRM, and our road system will not facilitate moving that many people around, even with help from ferries.

[Keith P.]

Knowing the head of this agency, I would not get my hopes up they will produce anything other than same old, same old. And actually building anything is a long way off regardless.

[terrynorthend]

It's worth noting that the recent insane population growth has backed off to less than 15,000 per year province-wide. If it doesn't pick up again, it'll take over 60 years to double.

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

If doubling the province’s population is going to be a thing, then one would have to consider that there is a need for both commuter rail and ferries. The majority of that increase would probably fall on HRM, and our road system will not facilitate moving that many people around, even with help from ferries.