Halifax Transit

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Perfect time to do this work then; I’ve noticed that traffic is WAY down with much of the population still working from home.

Not any longer. Today I was running errands and traffic was very heavy.

I was stuck in a lineup today and a MT bus was next to me. I noticed the decal on the front door saying to board using the rear doors. Now I understand that when fares were suspended that could be done, but I assume that will no longer be in effect now that they are starting to collect them again.

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I was stuck in a lineup today and a MT bus was next to me. I noticed the decal on the front door saying to board using the rear doors. Now I understand that when fares were suspended that could be done, but I assume that will no longer be in effect now that they are starting to collect them again.

Yeah, front boarding and fare collection starts back up August 1st.

[Dmajackson]

Work is progressing on the Robie/Young transit lanes. They've resurfaced most of the corridor and painted the new lanes along a portion. The Robie/North and Robie/Cunard intersections are still being rebuilt but the changes are impressive especially for the new Cunard alignment. One thing I'm sad to see not included is the marked crosswalk at Robie/Russell that was originally proposed. The finished section has new 'No Stopping 6am-6pm' signage which indicates the transit lanes will be in effect during those hours.

As for Bayers Road it is chaotic enough along that stretch that electronic message signs in Dartmouth are warning people to avoid driving in the area. From my limited experience I have to agree that is a great idea!

[atbw]

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

Work is progressing on the Robie/Young transit lanes. They've resurfaced most of the corridor and painted the new lanes along a portion. The Robie/North and Robie/Cunard intersections are still being rebuilt but the changes are impressive especially for the new Cunard alignment. One thing I'm sad to see not included is the marked crosswalk at Robie/Russell that was originally proposed. The finished section has new 'No Stopping 6am-6pm' signage which indicates the transit lanes will be in effect during those hours.

As for Bayers Road it is chaotic enough along that stretch that electronic message signs in Dartmouth are warning people to avoid driving in the area. From my limited experience I have to agree that is a great idea!

I was for a run that took me out to Bayers road last weekend and the whole area is very under construction with the sewer work and recapping going on along Romans. Going to be quite a swath of road when it’s done.

[Dmajackson]

Halifax Transit's 2021/22 Annual Service Plan is up for debate next week. If approved all of the changes will occur at once in November 2021. This will be the largest one day change the service's history. Rather than typing out all of the changes I will highlight a few key points and post a screenshot from the document summarizing all the affected routes.



Key takeaways;

- Most routes in Dartmouth will be altered this year especially those serving Portland Hills Terminal. Since I've never used that terminal I'll reserve judgement on those changes.

- Three new corridor routes will be created; Route 5 (Portland Hills - Penhorn - Alderney - Bridge - Scotia Square), Route 6 A/B/C (Bridge - Alderney - Woodside - Eastern Passage), and Route 7 A/B (Peninsula Loop via Robie and Gottingen). Other corridor routes like 3, 8, or 9 are examples of what to expect for these new routes. I commute via an existing corridor route and I'm satisfied with the service levels.

- The West Bedford Park 'N Ride will be constructed this summer. It'll be next to C.P. Allen High School on Innovation Drive. It'll have four bays and heated shelters (like Highfield but with parking). This is the first terminal in Bedford so it's nice to see HT make investments in this area but the service levels proposed are miserable. Only four routes will service the terminal. One is a peak-only downtown express, and one is a peak-only rural route from Lacewood to Tantallon. That means only two routes will service the terminal full time and both routes run south with one running downtown and the other to Mumford with a lot of existing overlap. I'll post some solutions to this in another post soon.

[IanWatson]

The Portland Street changes make a ton of sense. It always seemed kind of silly that you'd get the 58, 59 and 61 and sometimes 68 all running the corridor at basically the same time. Better to replace them with one, frequent route.

I also appreciate that they've differentiated the Route 7 directions. I'm curious to see what the changes mean in terms of service levels.

[Dmajackson]

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

- The West Bedford Park 'N Ride will be constructed this summer. It'll be next to C.P. Allen High School on Innovation Drive. It'll have four bays and heated shelters (like Highfield but with parking). This is the first terminal in Bedford so it's nice to see HT make investments in this area but the service levels proposed are miserable. Only four routes will service the terminal. One is a peak-only downtown express, and one is a peak-only rural route from Lacewood to Tantallon. That means only two routes will service the terminal full time and both routes run south with one running downtown and the other to Mumford with a lot of existing overlap. I'll post some solutions to this in another post soon.

The tender for the earthworks portion of the new West Bedford Park 'N Ride has been sent out. The site plan shows a four-bay bus terminal accessed via two points on Innovation Drive. The park 'n ride is accessed via the intersection of Innovation Drive and Angus Morton Drive and is a surface lot of a couple hundred spots.

As for my post above Halifax Transit should introduce two new routes servicing the new terminal;

- Route 96: This route will introduce all-day service to the area serviced by Express Route 196 in Bedford and new service to Rocky Lake ending at Bedford Commons. Stating at West Bedford (r) Innovation Drive (r) Hammonds Plains Road (l) Basinview Drive (r) Meadowbrook Drive (l) Bedford Highway (r) Rocky Lake Drive (l) Duke Street (l) Damascus Road where it'll terminate at the end. This will be a local service with 30-min headways during weekdays and run seven days a week. Timepoints at Damascus Road, Sunnyside Mall, Meadowbrook @ Bfd Hwy, Bedford Hills @ HPR, and West Bedford.

- Route 350: This Metro Express service will utilize the new transit lanes on the Peninsula to introduce peak-hour, limited stop service to West Bedford. Starting at West Bedford (r) Innovation Drive (r) Hammonds Plains Road (r) Highway 102 SB (s) Bayers Road (s) Young Street (r) Robie Street (l) Bell Road (r) Summer Street (l) Spring Garden (l) Barrington Street where it'll terminate at Scotia Square. Like existing Metro Express's this route will be premium fare and peak-hour, peak-direction only. The limited stops will be at West Bedford, Halifax Shopping Centre (Bayers Road), QEII (Summer Street), and Scotia Square (Barrington Street).

[Antigonish]

Sorry guys for derailing the topic, but does anyone know where/how to access any origin-destination survey data regarding transportation in Halifax? I'm assuming HRM must have all this data compiled like other cities, i.e. transit, automobile, walking, cycling trip data? It seems difficult to reach out to anyone specifically, I've tried the 311 info desk and they just sent me links to generic transit schedules which... wasn't what I asked or was looking for.

It's for a project I'm working on. It would be nice to access this somehow.

Thanks

[Querce]

https://www.halifax.ca/transportatio...uter-data-apps

[Antigonish]

Originally Posted by Querce

https://www.halifax.ca/transportatio...uter-data-apps

Yeah I was looking through that earlier, I'm looking for the raw data files (.dbf, .shp, etc) to create my own network analyst calculations/maps. I guess I'll keep looking and emailing

[q12]

Originally Posted by Hali87

.

Repost from Canadian Transit Thread

[teddifax]

I am confused. I live on Willett St, but not near Lacewood. If going downtown, I would take the PURPLE line, but.... how do I get downtown...it crosses the bridge without a way to transfer to another line that goes directly to downtown.... I feel there is a gap that this line goes Gottingen St. then down North St. across the bridge, but the nearest line is on Barrington St. Am I missing something here? I see that the Yellow line at the HSC would connect to downtown, but what a convoluted way to get there....

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by teddifax

I am confused. I live on Willett St, but not near Lacewood. If going downtown, I would take the PURPLE line, but.... how do I get downtown...it crosses the bridge without a way to transfer to another line that goes directly to downtown.... I feel there is a gap that this line goes Gottingen St. then down North St. across the bridge, but the nearest line is on Barrington St. Am I missing something here? I see that the Yellow line at the HSC would connect to downtown, but what a convoluted way to get there....

It seems the HSC or Robie would work.

[OldDartmouthMark]

When you have to make a couple of route transfers, doesn't that take the "R" out of BRT?

[teddifax]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

When you have to make a couple of route transfers, doesn't that take the "R" out of BRT?

That's what I was thinking.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

When you have to make a couple of route transfers, doesn't that take the "R" out of BRT?

People do that with the Montreal Metro or the Toronto Subway. Doesn't make it less R for RT. What will make it better is if it is both rapid and frequent.

[someone123]

The cost of the transfer depends a lot on what the frequencies are and how the terminals are set up. There are some examples of metro transfers where the subways arrive on the same platform and the trains come every 2 minutes. At the other end, transferring to an unreliable 30 minute frequency bus is awful.

[teddifax]

Originally Posted by someone123

The cost of the transfer depends a lot on what the frequencies are and how the terminals are set up. There are some examples of metro transfers where the subways arrive on the same platform and the trains come every 2 minutes. At the other end, transferring to an unreliable 30 minute frequency bus is awful.

Our transit system has for the most part been unreliable with connections and speed of the bus service. You see people trying to transfer to a bus at a transfer site, only to either just miss a connecting bus or have to wait quite a while. Also, the frequency of the bus runs is spread too far apart. I hope (maybe wishful thinking) that this will mean once and for all a true fast, reliable system, but I feel they are missing out not having all "Routes" interconnect at major points. Here I am referencing to the fastest route of my getting downtown, would be the PURPLE line and transfer to the RED line.... but, this line goes down Barrington, which is not close to Gottingen St and furthermore there is no STOP at the Bridge at that point, Cornwallis being the last stop before the bridge.... Already this system doesn't seem well thought out!

[atbw]

I think something worth nothing is that BRT isn’t replacing the existing bus service, and that existing bus service is going to be augmented as well. Living on the peninsula, I can really only see myself taking the yellow to the mall now and again. But there’s lots of routes like the 7 that serve me really well.

[Dmajackson]

Phase I of Bayers Road Transit Corridor is now complete. For a street widening project it looks pretty good and the transit bypass lane is a cool new feature.

Haligonia.ca has some photos;