Rapid Transit in the Halifax area

[Nouvellecosse]

Going above buildings would be good if there was a long enough stretch of buildings with very similar height such as if they were all 5 stories. But I'm not aware of many suitable places in downtown Hfx. You'd end up having to go through some of the larger buildings or something which probably would quash the whole thing.

[swimmer_spe]

There is also the challenge of spans. Railway cars, even Light Rail are not very light. The cost of building a bridge(Which this is effectively one) over buildings mean that they would need to be beefed up.

This then makes the whole project unfeasible due to costs.

[Keith P.]

A monorail!

[someone123]

It would also be more expensive and inconvenient to have platforms so high up and then have large numbers of people getting from street level to stations 5 floors higher. Even busy stations with transfers on 2 different levels are annoying. Subway stations far underground with long escalators are annoying too.

I don't mean to be negative about creative ideas like these, but I think there is a bit too much of a sense in Halifax that it is somehow a special, difficult-to-serve case and needs unique transit solutions. This is not the case. It would be perfectly fine to run light rail or streetcars along the streets that already exist. If they manage in cities like San Francisco and Boston without resorting to something more elaborate, the elaborate solution is probably not needed in Halifax.

I also like to point out that the variant argument, "Halifax is too crowded for mass transit", makes no sense. As a city gets more crowded the best thing to do is often to take some of the space that is allocated to less space-efficient modes of transportation, like cars, and allocate it to more space-efficient modes of transportation, like trains. The city already has lots of buses clogging up the streets so it's not even clear that replacing these with trains along a major transit corridor would result in less throughput for other vehicles that are on the roads today. Along a limited stretch, like the downtown part of Barrington Street, a transit tunnel could be an option too.

[Nouvellecosse]

I like the look of the city centre sections of the Manchester light rail. I wonder how well that would work here. Theirs runs down some very narrow streets which seem to have been made into transit malls. The issue here is that we don't seem to have enough continuous N-S streets for that. We basically have Barrington, Lower Water, Hollis, and Brunswick. Unless Hollis was used and Lower Water made two way again. Which wouldn't be so hard if we eliminated on-street parking.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't mean to be negative about creative ideas like these, but I think there is a bit too much of a sense in Halifax that it is somehow a special, difficult-to-serve case and needs unique transit solutions. This is not the case. It would be perfectly fine to run light rail or streetcars along the streets that already exist. If they manage in cities like San Francisco and Boston without resorting to something more elaborate, the elaborate solution is probably not needed in Halifax.

I would suggest that those cities are not afflicted with old, chronically narrow main streets like Halifax is. Even a place like Boston does not have its main downtown streets as narrow as Barrington, Hollis and Water.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I would suggest that those cities are not afflicted with old, chronically narrow main streets like Halifax is. Even a place like Boston does not have its main downtown streets as narrow as Barrington, Hollis and Water.

Here's California Street in downtown SF, a pretty normal street in the central office district that also has street cars and surface parking: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7933...7i13312!8i6656

I would say that looks comparable to Hollis Street to me, but with bigger buildings. They also have BART, which is a subway in this part of the city.

San Francisco is interesting because its topography is similar to Halifax; there are lots of small hills and many people have to commute over the bridges. The Sunset Tunnel is one example where there's a surface train that runs under a hill for a bit: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7692...8i6656!6m1!1e1

If you look on streetview, Boston's definitely got some narrow, winding streets downtown. They also have infrastructure related to the Big Dig which is not unlike what could be built on a smaller scale in Halifax when Cogswell comes down.

The Big Dig in Boston cost $22B US, and the Boston metropolitan area is about 11x the size of Halifax. Proportionately, that would be like Halifax spending $2B on a transportation project. I think this is the real reason why Halifax's transportation infrastructure isn't great and why traffic is poor; nobody's investing the money to fix it. The city doesn't really need exotic projects, it just needs a transportation authority with the budget to build real infrastructure.

[Keith P.]

California St looks wider than Hollis to me, and of course it has neither wasteful bike lanes nor container trucks careening along it either.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

California St looks wider than Hollis to me, and of course it has neither wasteful bike lanes nor container trucks careening along it either.

That is why they need to find a way to create the other side of the Circ in Halifax.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

Here's California Street in downtown SF, a pretty normal street in the central office district that also has street cars and surface parking: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7933...7i13312!8i6656

I would say that looks comparable to Hollis Street to me, but with bigger buildings. They also have BART, which is a subway in this part of the city.

San Francisco is interesting because its topography is similar to Halifax; there are lots of small hills and many people have to commute over the bridges. The Sunset Tunnel is one example where there's a surface train that runs under a hill for a bit: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7692...8i6656!6m1!1e1

If you look on streetview, Boston's definitely got some narrow, winding streets downtown. They also have infrastructure related to the Big Dig which is not unlike what could be built on a smaller scale in Halifax when Cogswell comes down.

The Big Dig in Boston cost $22B US, and the Boston metropolitan area is about 11x the size of Halifax. Proportionately, that would be like Halifax spending $2B on a transportation project. I think this is the real reason why Halifax's transportation infrastructure isn't great and why traffic is poor; nobody's investing the money to fix it. The city doesn't really need exotic projects, it just needs a transportation authority with the budget to build real infrastructure.

Yes, and we have to allocate the funding in a rational way that gives us the biggest bang for our buck. It seems like when it comes to transit projects - or any transportation projects other than for cars - you get people balking at the cost and saying that not enough people will use it and pointing to the low existing usage which is of course the way it is because we haven't invested enough in it to make it widely attractive. It's like an ice cream stand that offers vanilla ice cream immediately and chocolate with 10 minute wait. They complain about the cost of upgrading the chocolate machine to make it as fast as the vanilla because 80% of the customers order vanilla which is proof that it's their favourite. A saner person would conclude that it's necessary to upgrade the chocolate machine so that customers will have an equal opportunity to enjoy something other than vanilla.

In the case of transportation, even if we were to devote only 1/3 of the transportation budget to public transit, that 1/3 could serve 2/3 of the total trips because it's so much more efficient. Not that I expect our modal split to ever be that dramatic, but it wouldn't need to be in order for HRM mobility to be greatly improved.

[Aya_Akai]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

A monorail!

[Drybrain]

*delete*

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I would suggest that those cities are not afflicted with old, chronically narrow main streets like Halifax is. Even a place like Boston does not have its main downtown streets as narrow as Barrington, Hollis and Water.

Yes, it`s true that all our wider inner-city streets converge into a (very small) cluster of city blocks that are entirely narrow, around our own small “financial district.” But that’s typical of many old cities. As I’ve posted before, here’s Broadway in NYC’s financial district. Or here it is again, a few blocks south and even narrower. The widest street in that whole area is Water Street, which is still only four blocks wide and skirts the edge of the district. This is a much larger financial district, covering a much larger area, with overall narrower streets.

It’s hard to compare NYC and Halifax given the huge scale difference, but that fact that NYC has that much more crushing traffic volumes should suggest how comparatively easy we have it, traffic-wise. And outside of the very small cluster of blocks between Cogswell and Sackville, Water to the CItadel—easily navigated on foot or by public transit, or a very inexpensive cab ride—our city centre overall has plenty of roomy streets. People talk as if some tragic, Halifax-specific lack of civic foresight has saddled us with an out-of-date street grid, but, well, no.

Since driving on Barrington is such a pain anyway, here’s an idea: Run a tram or something like it all the way along Barrington, jogging west to Gottingen/Novalea in the North End. Close Barrington to all motorized vehicles except emergency traffic between Cogswell and Morris Street, so the tram can run unimpeded through the narrowest portion.

If the thing ran fast, and had connections to cross-peninsula bus routes, it’d be a ridiculously effective commuter option. And might then reduce auto traffic.

[Ziobrop]

there are 2 Basic types of Rail transit.

Heavy and Light Rail.

LRT makes alot of sense for transit - it can run on existing right of ways, vehicles are low floor, and in a pinch can also run safely down a street like a street car.

Transport Canada Has one big stipulation. You cant run Light trains on the same track as heavy trains concurrently. (Since in a Collision, the light vehicle would loose)

In Halifax we look at Heavy Rail transit. We used to have dayliner service, so there is that, also the RDC cars are apparently refurbished and for sale in Moncton. We also have active heavy rail lines, which we could reuse, which precludes light rail.

the solution is to convince TC to change their minds. LRT could use existing tracks, then run the last few miles on a new dedicated row along barrington, before actually running down barrington downtown like a street car.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

It's like an ice cream stand that offers vanilla ice cream immediately and chocolate with 10 minute wait. They complain about the cost of upgrading the chocolate machine to make it as fast as the vanilla because 80% of the customers order vanilla which is proof that it's their favourite. A saner person would conclude that it's necessary to upgrade the chocolate machine so that customers will have an equal opportunity to enjoy something other than vanilla.

The risk of that business model is that even if 50% of the current vanilla customers say they will switch to chocolate if the upgrades are done, there is no guarantee that they will actually buy chocolate when it's done, or continue to buy chocolate after the novelty of being able to get it has worn off. If the cost of upgrading the chocolate machine is insanely high, this could be a major hit for the business. The real key point is that there is no guarantee that the ability to get faster chocolate ice cream will bring in extra or more frequent customers to offset the cost of the upgrades. If you only convert a portion of your existing vanilla customers to chocolate without bringing in additional business, then you've just decreased your profit margin for the sake of making only a moderate percentage of your customers happier, unless you increase the cost of the chocolate which again puts it at a disadvantage to the vanilla.

Not that it applies to transit, as it is more based on need rather than a fickle flavour preference, but just stating that there is a bit of risk involved in the "build it and they will come" philosophy.

Personally, I would like to see some substantial change in our transit system to include rail, and that may come yet with the potential of using the existing rail cut. How we move people from there is still up for grabs, but I think it's quite probable that a revamped bus system would be adequate, after some of the load is taken off the existing bus system by a new rail system.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Does Halifax have an app / GPS on the busses to let you know when exactly they are coming? What about stop notifications when you are on the bus (i.e. pre-recorded or computer voiced)?

Seems like its still very old school when these cheap upgrades would make a world of difference (and drivers more accountable).

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

The risk of that business model is that even if 50% of the current vanilla customers say they will switch to chocolate if the upgrades are done, there is no guarantee that they will actually buy chocolate when it's done, or continue to buy chocolate after the novelty of being able to get it has worn off. If the cost of upgrading the chocolate machine is insanely high, this could be a major hit for the business. The real key point is that there is no guarantee that the ability to get faster chocolate ice cream will bring in extra or more frequent customers to offset the cost of the upgrades. If you only convert a portion of your existing vanilla customers to chocolate without bringing in additional business, then you've just decreased your profit margin for the sake of making only a moderate percentage of your customers happier, unless you increase the cost of the chocolate which again puts it at a disadvantage to the vanilla.

Not that it applies to transit, as it is more based on need rather than a fickle flavour preference, but just stating that there is a bit of risk involved in the "build it and they will come" philosophy.

Personally, I would like to see some substantial change in our transit system to include rail, and that may come yet with the potential of using the existing rail cut. How we move people from there is still up for grabs, but I think it's quite probable that a revamped bus system would be adequate, after some of the load is taken off the existing bus system by a new rail system.

That's mostly true in the case of simple "preference". But remember that it would also be different if we knew that people already enjoyed chocolate at far higher rates than now before all the costly investment in vanilla were made. That's an implicit part of the transpiration comparison. Within the last century, governments and industry very aggressively made investments and planning changes in a way that favoured one mode over the others and as a result made that mode more enjoyable, then took the stance that because people were using that mode, that the people chose it as their preference. In the analogy you'd have to do consumer market research to determine what people actually wanted, and not simply ask the question as, "do you prefer buying chocolate or vanilla" since unless specified, part of the preference will inevitably be that vanilla is currently so much faster. It would involve describing how both experiences would look under the proposed changes.

[someone123]

the solution is to convince TC to change their minds. LRT could use existing tracks, then run the last few miles on a new dedicated row along barrington, before actually running down barrington downtown like a street car.

I think there already are some mixed systems in the US where light rail trains share track with freight trains, so the idea is not far-fetched. This could be a nice solution for Halifax.

It's also worth emphasizing that LRT really has not been studied much in Halifax. The decision-making process has been short-circuited a bit by people interested in particular solutions like the fast ferries or commuter rail (actually it is a lot like the monorail joke). I suspect LRT could be useful even if it were just a limited system serving the peninsula and maybe Clayton Park. It would serve as a transit backbone and the suburban routes would connect to it outside of the urban core. The city needs a wider public study that looks at the major regional pain points and evaluates all of the options.

[Keith P.]

Well, HRM is trying to bury a rail option yet again:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-s...stem-1.3236920

The idea of having a commuter rail system in Halifax was dealt a blow Monday as the city released a report which found it would not be economically viable.

In January 2012, the city engaged consultanting firm CPCS to do a feasibility study for a commuter rail system. The study looked at routes from Halifax to Elmsdale, Halifax to Cobequid (Windsor Junction), and Halifax to Beaver Bank.

While the study found a system would be technically feasible, factors such as"high initial capital costs, high annual operating costs and relatively low fare revenue" would make the project too costly.

The study also looked at how the costs of a commuter rail system would compare to the current public transit system. It found that on a Halifax-to-Cobequid route, the service would have 3,049 passengers daily and would cost almost $10 million in annual operating costs. Halifax Transit's eight express routes that run to downtown Halifax cost about $2.3 million to operate and carry 3,608 passengers each day.

The study also noted the downtown Halifax station location would be "unfavourably located in terms of the major employment centres in the downtown."
Reason for optimism

However, should there be significant population growth where the proposed station locations are located (West End, Mill Cove, Birch Cove and Sunnyside), this would change the viability.

Also federal funding for commuter rail infrastructure costs would also make the project more economically attractive.

Link to the report:

http://www.halifax.ca/boardscom/SCtr...924tsc913a.pdf

[OldDartmouthMark]

Hmmm... sounds like the city prefers vanilla...