Halifax Traffic

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

My question would be: how happy are the citizens with that system? Euroland has generally supported things like rail infrastructure and other public transportation by taxing things like gasoline and incomes at levels that would have citizens here in the streets with torches and pitchforks if proposed. Add to that the general perception here of public transport as slow, dirty, unreliable and filled with numerous undesirables and it would be a terribly hard sell. Often things seem better until you look beneath the surface.

Care to elaborate?

[Hali87]

My overall impression is that Europeans are more satisfied with their system(s) than they are with ours, and when they come here, they see what we have and realize this.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Care to elaborate?

Seems self-evident - the hoodlums, petty criminals, and ne'er do wells who, along with the great unwashed, are habituees of our transit system. It is perceived, perhaps correctly, as a low-class alternative.

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Seems self-evident - the hoodlums, petty criminals, and ne'er do wells who, along with the great unwashed, are habituees of our transit system. It is perceived, perhaps correctly, as a low-class alternative.

While I'm all for public transit; reading this I can't help but recall a comment that a friend of mine in Halifax made about Halifax Transit that stands out. It's transit for the poor she said. I was surprised; but then not so surprised when I took it while I was home a few weeks ago for a funeral.

It's not perfect by any means - I guess it all depends on how you see it. My friend who said the comment above lives in Dartmouth near Penhorn and despite having a station there - doesn't get that great of service past a certain hour. My mom lives in Bedford off Larry Uteck and I found the 90 works really well; as does the 81 (when it's running).

But man the traffic was insane without the bridges. I couldn't believe how bad it was when I was home. That said, I still support a 3rd crossing but only if it's going to have transit dedicated lanes or provision for LRT.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Interesting, though I always take that number for Halifax as basically a bureaucratic falsehood, due to our comically overreaching civic amalgamation.

I don't know what the pre-HRM land area is, but the city's wikipedia page lists the "urban" land area at 262 square kilometres, so I'd use that number for purposes of comparing with the above figures.



For sure, I don't intend it as a directly applicable comparison. Amsterdam and Halifax are extremely un-alike. (Though Halifax does have a lot of parallels with Reykjavik, which surprised me. And is overall complimentary, since Reykjavik, car-dependence aside, is pretty great.)

It was just interesting to be in a city where private automobiles clearly dominated transport planning, and another where mode-sharing was the clear priority, and see how much more manageable traffic was in the latter. Even with a far larger population.

Your points are well-taken. Just when I read your post it started me thinking about how comparable the situations are and really, how some of the slick urban solutions we've come to love are in a sense necessities borne of populations on the verge of being unmanageable, which historically hasn't been one of Canada's main issues.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Seems self-evident - the hoodlums, petty criminals, and ne'er do wells who, along with the great unwashed, are habituees of our transit system. It is perceived, perhaps correctly, as a low-class alternative.

When's the last time you took a bus? In any case, people like that are everywhere.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

The difference, as I see it, is that although pretty much all the towns and cities in Nova Scotia were once connected by rail, they were subsidized by the government and thus able to remain in operation despite being generally underutilized. Eventually, in light of the onslaught of other forms of transportation (e.g. automobiles and buses), our population density wasn't really large enough to financially support regular rail service and our government didn't have the political strength (or, perhaps, the foresight) to maintain and bolster rail service like typical European cities/countries did.

I'm not sure if you meant this, but your explanation seems to imply that railways were always public and automobile traffic are private or more private. This isn't the case. There used to be lots of private rail companies and the roads and highways in Nova Scotia are heavily subsidized. For better or worse, there was a deliberate shift in public funding from rail to highways. The decline of the railways only happened after the shift in funding to roads.

This is why we see a stretch of 10-lane highway in Dartmouth (now featuring traffic jams) but almost zero rail service. It's a bit silly that projects like the 102 widening and 3rd bridge will be proposed at a cost of over a billion dollars but then when it comes to transit something like a $20M bus terminal is considered a huge deal and LRT is beyond the pale.

For all the talk of NS being sparsely populated, I bet that some rail service in the Netherlands is subsidized too. In the last few years, probably because of Republican-style propaganda (which seems to seep unthinkingly into public life in Canada too), all public expenses and subsidy have taken on negative connotations. This shouldn't be. Some of these public expenditures are necessary and many of them are excellent projects. Without them, modern life wouldn't be possible.

People in Halifax should accept that given the size of the city and how it's growing there needs to be, over the years and decades, billions of dollars in transportation funding, and there should be some major projects. That is all perfectly normal. There should also be a debate about the allocation breakdown between roads and highways and public transit.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ It's gotten to the point in our public discourse where transportation spending related to anything other than private automobiles is considered catering to a some fringe or special interest group and therefore one has to constantly prove its cost effectiveness, whereas the burden of proof is much lower for road projects.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by someone123

I'm not sure if you meant this, but your explanation seems to imply that railways were always public and automobile traffic are private or more private. This isn't the case. There used to be lots of private rail companies and the roads and highways in Nova Scotia are heavily subsidized. For better or worse, there was a deliberate shift in public funding from rail to highways. The decline of the railways only happened after the shift in funding to roads.

This is why we see a stretch of 10-lane highway in Dartmouth (now featuring traffic jams) but almost zero rail service. It's a bit silly that projects like the 102 widening and 3rd bridge will be proposed at a cost of over a billion dollars but then when it comes to transit something like a $20M bus terminal is considered a huge deal and LRT is beyond the pale.

For all the talk of NS being sparsely populated, I bet that some rail service in the Netherlands is subsidized too. In the last few years, probably because of Republican-style propaganda (which seems to seep unthinkingly into public life in Canada too), all public expenses and subsidy have taken on negative connotations. This shouldn't be. Some of these public expenditures are necessary and many of them are excellent projects. Without them, modern life wouldn't be possible.

People in Halifax should accept that given the size of the city and how it's growing there needs to be, over the years and decades, billions of dollars in transportation funding, and there should be some major projects. That is all perfectly normal. There should also be a debate about the allocation breakdown between roads and highways and public transit.

No, it's not what I meant, nor intended to imply. However, it's my belief that the deliberate shift in public funding was due to the general acceptance of the car as the next big thing in the early 20th century. It could come down to a chicken vs egg scenario, but my impression is that funding was shifted to roads vs rails because that's what the public wanted or the powers that be saw as the future. Perhaps it's more sinister than that, you tell me.

In my post above I was attempting to focus on the years near the end of the small branch lines, from the 1970s to 1990s, as it would be a waste of bandwidth to try to recite the history of rail in Canada for every post involving rail. Sorry if I mislead.

I agree with you that we should be taking on big projects, such as rail and other infrastructure (as I've mentioned in numerous other posts), however in this post I was simply musing at the reasons that places like The Netherlands have such a highly developed rail system vs Canada. I'm sure the true answer would be much more intensive than I could produce, but I'm also sure that population density is a large factor.

FWIW, I don't think you need to venture as far as republican-style propaganda for attitudes on public project spending, you really only have to look as far as municipal and provincial politicians selling the public on the idea budget surpluses are a good thing, or how much better they are than previous governments because they managed to balance the budget.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

^ It's gotten to the point in our public discourse where transportation spending related to anything other than private automobiles is considered catering to a some fringe or special interest group and therefore one has to constantly prove its cost effectiveness, whereas the burden of proof is much lower for road projects.

I believe that to be an exaggeration. I don't think the general public nor the average forum member thinks like that.

[Nouvellecosse]

Maybe not the average person, but certainly the vocal minorities that often set the tone of discourse.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Maybe not the average person, but certainly the vocal minorities that often set the tone of discourse.

True enough. Best to ignore them and continue to hold strongly to your beliefs. Forums like this can be great for conversation and debate, but often points or tone can be misinterpreted or mispresented.

As long as we remember that we are only really sharing ideas and not defending the core of our being, it's all good.

It's not personal, it's just conversation. IMHO.

[Nouvellecosse]

I dunno. Setting aside the interpersonal relationship aspect, I think disregarding conflicting views and clinging strongly to one's beliefs also isn't terribly great for one's intellectual growth. IMO a person must constantly test and challenge her or his own views and defend them against both internal and external scrutiny in order to be confident in their veracity. In this sense, it is rather personal. But of course, that's one of the things that makes the forum such a useful platform. If it were just detached and meaningless it would be rather a waste of time.

But of course, I've also learned the value of the ignore function. I'm not sure I could have survived 10 years on the forum without it. Although most discussion and debate is (to varying degrees) useful, with some people it simply isn't. The dynamic that allows for productive discourse just isn't there.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I agree with you that we should be taking on big projects, such as rail and other infrastructure (as I've mentioned in numerous other posts), however in this post I was simply musing at the reasons that places like The Netherlands have such a highly developed rail system vs Canada. I'm sure the true answer would be much more intensive than I could produce, but I'm also sure that population density is a large factor.

Rail is also used for trips that would often be done by airplane here - major cities are close enough together that this is easily viable. Consider that Halifax - Saint John is a similar distance to Amsterdam - Paris or Amsterdam - London. And then even closer you have Rotterdam, the Hague, Antwerp, Brussels, Cologne...

To compare Halifax to Amsterdam and NS to the Netherlands you also need to look beyond the borders - NB, PEI, Maine and the Gaspe are not settled like the average European country either.

[beyeas]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

My question would be: how happy are the citizens with that system? Euroland has generally supported things like rail infrastructure and other public transportation by taxing things like gasoline and incomes at levels that would have citizens here in the streets with torches and pitchforks if proposed.

A self-fulfilling prophecy.

To say that a transit system not as well supported by public funds is perceived to be of lower quality, ergo people would not support putting additional public funds into such a poorly perceived system, is circular. Same time-tested method used to cut funds to other public institutions that a politician doesn't like: cut funding, wait until people complain that the service is poor, use that as the reason to further cut funding, repeat until funding reaches zero.

The concept that "undesirables" are somehow the marker for whether a mass transit system is perceived as being of poor quality is utterly laughable. Take any large scale successful system (NY subway, London tube, etc) and you will find the cars packed with people of every socioeconomic class. What makes the Halifax transit system currently dysfunctional isn't the social standing of those using it, but the simple fact that it takes too long to get anywhere because of the lack of ROW and sprawling circuitous routes.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I dunno. Setting aside the interpersonal relationship aspect, I think disregarding conflicting views and clinging strongly to one's beliefs also isn't terribly great for one's intellectual growth. IMO a person must constantly test and challenge her or his own views and defend them against both internal and external scrutiny in order to be confident in their veracity. In this sense, it is rather personal. But of course, that's one of the things that makes the forum such a useful platform. If it were just detached and meaningless it would be rather a waste of time.

But of course, I've also learned the value of the ignore function. I'm not sure I could have survived 10 years on the forum without it. Although most discussion and debate is (to varying degrees) useful, with some people it simply isn't. The dynamic that allows for productive discourse just isn't there.

Must you argue with everything I write?

Actually I was just trying to give you encouragement to stick to your guns as your post seemed like you were becoming discouraged.

I actually adhere pretty strongly to the same points you made. I have my opinions based on my life and experience but always try to keep an open mind and my eyes open to see what's going on around me. Some posters may get tired of my drivel, but at least for me it is always a learning experience.

[Nouvellecosse]

Yes I had a pretty good idea what you were going for. I was just giving you a hard time.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Hali87

When's the last time you took a bus? In any case, people like that are everywhere.

Well, they aren't in my car.

The last time I took a bus I was subjected to a tidal wave of Axe fumes from a loud group of teenage boys of undetermined origin. Whether it was preferable to BO is an open question.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Maybe not the average person, but certainly the vocal minorities that often set the tone of discourse.

The only vocal minority that has set the tone for transportation discourse in this town recently is the cycling lobby.

[OldDartmouthMark]

While we're on the subject of traffic, just saw on the Halifax traffic twitter feed that Hollis St (among others) is backed up due to a gas leak up around Morris Street. What really struck me about the pics posted was the sheer number of container trucks going to Halterm.





Source: https://twitter.com/hfxtraffic

That in itself is a good argument for a third crossing located in the South End of the peninsula.

Heh, on second look it shows the taller ground floor (Hollis St side) of the Maple...