Waye Mason's Scary Future for Halifax Streets

[Keith P.]

http://www.votewayemason.ca/safestreets

Look at that rendering - he apparently wants to take the typical narrow Halifax 2-way street, remove most of the parking, make it 1-way/1-lane, and add the requisite unused bike lane and curb bump-out that are so de rigeur these days. Imagine what this would do to traffic, especially downtown. It is thinly-disguised propaganda for the Halifax Cycling Coalition extremists.

Do not vote for this guy if you want to at least have half a chance of getting around this city in a vehicle.

[beyeas]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

http://www.votewayemason.ca/safestreets

Look at that rendering - he apparently wants to take the typical narrow Halifax 2-way street, remove most of the parking, make it 1-way/1-lane, and add the requisite unused bike lane and curb bump-out that are so de rigeur these days. Imagine what this would do to traffic, especially downtown. It is thinly-disguised propaganda for the Halifax Cycling Coalition extremists.

Do not vote for this guy if you want to at least have half a chance of getting around this city in a vehicle.

I was very briefly confused. When I saw the purposefully inflammatory "Waye Mason's Scary Future for Halifax Streets", I reasonably assumed that The Donald had taken to commenting on SSP, and was confused as to why it didn't read "Lyin' Waye Mason's Scary Future for Halifax Streets #savethe4strokeengine #buildthewall". Then I clicked on the link and it all made sense when I realized it was The Keith and not The Donald after all.

[terrynorthend]

It seems like this could work if done on secondary streets. Ie., a street that parallels a main thoroughfare like Pepperell/Quinpool, Isleville/Argicola, Creighton/Gottingen. These are often neighbourhood streets where the residents regularly complain about fast short-cutting drivers and lack of on street parking, and ask for (and are turned down by council) various forms of street calming measures. This was just in the news with Creighton Street.

The trade off would be accepting their streets as one-way, but it could be their solution to traffic calming, lots of parking and a safe bike network.

[ILoveHalifax]

The picture does not look like a secondary street but rather a main shopping street with stores and with awnings - SGR???
Looks like Main St in Moncton where there is little space for cars and big wide sidewalks but there is nobody on the sidewalks because it doesn't WORK.
Waye's verbage talks about bikes, and pedestrians and handicapped and not a word about CARS.
Fine for Mason who lives in town but what about the other half million people in the metro area who might find cars the only viable option.
How wonderful when Mason controls everybody else's movement.
SCARY

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

The picture does not look like a secondary street but rather a main shopping street with stores and with awnings - SGR???
Looks like Main St in Moncton where there is little space for cars and big wide sidewalks but there is nobody on the sidewalks because it doesn't WORK.
Waye's verbage talks about bikes, and pedestrians and handicapped and not a word about CARS.
Fine for Mason who lives in town but what about the other half million people in the metro area who might find cars the only viable option.
How wonderful when Mason controls everybody else's movement.
SCARY

Are we looking at the same article? In the one I see, cars are mentioned on the very first line, ahead of any of the other modes:

"Residents deserve streets that are safe for everyone – whether they are driving a car, riding a bus, a bicycle, or walking"

But really, considering which of us find the plan terrifying, it's pretty safe to say the plan is a good one even without looking at any of the other details.

[JHikka]

Thanks for this Keith. Without posting this I wouldn't have known about Mason's thoughts on traffic calming and his commitment to making streets safer by better designing them.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Thanks for this Keith. Without posting this I wouldn't have known about Mason's thoughts on traffic calming and his commitment to making streets safer by better designing them.

Safer streets for all: a nightmare vision of the near future!

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

The picture does not look like a secondary street but rather a main shopping street with stores and with awnings - SGR???
Looks like Main St in Moncton where there is little space for cars and big wide sidewalks but there is nobody on the sidewalks because it doesn't WORK.
Waye's verbage talks about bikes, and pedestrians and handicapped and not a word about CARS.
Fine for Mason who lives in town but what about the other half million people in the metro area who might find cars the only viable option.
How wonderful when Mason controls everybody else's movement.
SCARY

I think it's a generic, non-Halifax image. But it could be Argyle, downtown Barrington, parts of Agricola, Portland in Dartmouth, etc.

Also, Main Street in Moncton doesn't work well because Moncton's downtown is far less healthy than ours. There's certainly no problem finding parking in downtown Moncton, anyway. Probably 30 percent of downtown land between St. George and Assomption is surface parking, in addition to street parking and garages.

Also X2, Halifax's population breakdown is not "Waye Mason" + "500,000 people who are mad for their cars and refuse to leave them behind wherever they go."

[Hali87]

Waye, if you're reading this, one thing I would suggest (if this is contextually possible) is to switch the bike lanes with the parking lanes. That way the parked cars act as a buffer between the car traffic and bike lanes, and drivers don't have to cut across the bike lanes to park. There are precedents for this in other cities - NYC being the first example I can think of offhand. (I realize this might not be feasible in some cases, like bus corridors and streets that are used heavily for deliveries)

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Safer streets for all who ride a bicycle: a nightmare vision of the near future!

Fixed.

[Hali87]

Care to explain why they wouldn't be safer for car drivers/passengers?

[Ziobrop]

You did see where he says narrowing lanes can be used to increase space for parking. Waye is actully advocating for the adoption of recognized standards for street design. Given the number of incidents with cars pedestrians and cyclists getting hit by drivers, fixing the roads themselves isn't a bad idea.

[IanWatson]

Did you even read the post, Keith? Or did you just look at the image, see a bike lane, and jump straight to writing an ill-informed thread?

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Thanks for this Keith. Without posting this I wouldn't have known about Mason's thoughts on traffic calming and his commitment to making streets safer by better designing them.

Looks like a great idea to me. It's actually even better for car drivers in that previously tight 2-lane roads will now be easier to negotiate as one-way lanes.

I agree with Hali in that there are many reasons why it would be better to switch the bike and parking lanes, though.

Thanks to Keith for posting this. Waye's ideas are very good and I would not have known about this otherwise.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Did you even read the post, Keith? Or did you just look at the image, see a bike lane, and jump straight to writing an ill-informed thread?

Bike lanes are a waste of money when vehicle traffic (including buses), which is the dominant method for people to get around in this city, is gridlocked because of antiquated roads without adequate capacity. If you want to spend public money on widening roads and include an unused but politically correct bike lane in the mix, fill your boots. But do not start taking away capacity to satisfy the delusional HCC.

[JET]

He don't like bikes, he don't like roundabouts, he don't like Dartmouth Crossing, he don't like old stuff, he don't like much, it seems.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Bike lanes are a waste of money when vehicle traffic (including buses), which is the dominant method for people to get around in this city, is gridlocked because of antiquated roads without adequate capacity. If you want to spend public money on widening roads and include an unused but politically correct bike lane in the mix, fill your boots. But do not start taking away capacity to satisfy the delusional HCC.

When I moved to Toronto in 2008, there were scant few bikes on the streets. It was sort of Halifax now, and the streets in central Toronto are no wider, generally, than in Halifax.

As more road capacity was given over to bikes, more cyclists hit the streets every year. Today, there are legitimate bike jams on some routes during rush hour. It's taken pressure off of transit and certainly gotten some people out of cars (alleviating some traffic congestion, at least). Now, the city has just put bike lanes on one of its most important east-west arteries, Bloor Street, which is only four lanes wide, including on-street parking. I haven't seen in person how it's working, but reports that I've seen are that the design has managed to please most people.

I've noticed what appears to be the beginning of an increase here too: This year it feels as if more cyclists are on the streets, though I don't have any hard data. And Halifax is probably better for biking than Toronto: We have almost an identical climate and length of winter (we're wetter in summer, though) and the city is more compact, meaning cyclists can cover a greater portion of it with relative ease.

Cyclists could end up being a significant part of the transport mix here, and it could have net benefits for drivers, in terms of reducing cars on the road, at least for short trips in the regional centre.

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Bike lanes are a waste of money when vehicle traffic (including buses), which is the dominant method for people to get around in this city, is gridlocked because of antiquated roads without adequate capacity. ....

I would agree that the roads in their current forms are inadequate, but I don't think you and I would agree what "adequate" means... LOL. I'm not inclined to be scared by Waye's convictions, but buoyed, and would be of the opinion that more adequate urban transportation network is closer to what Waye has articulated than wider streets with more space given to cars.

I'd agree with Hali87's suggestion above: move the parked cars to act as buffers between vehicular traffic and people on bikes.

[scooby074]

Ive lived where the local town installed those corner bump outs that seem to be "a thing" now.

Looks good on paper, but in our climate they dont work. The plow crews can't efficiently plow main street in winter do to them sticking out and they function as "suspension destroyers" all year round because of their lack of visibility.

Just a horrible idea in practice.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by scooby074

Ive lived where the local town installed those corner bump outs that seem to be "a thing" now.

Looks good on paper, but in our climate they dont work. The plow crews can't efficiently plow main street in winter do to them sticking out and they function as "suspension destroyers" all year round because of their lack of visibility.

Just a horrible idea in practice.

Yep.

These are the last things we should be wasting money on.

Especially when we are still stuck with the cartpath that is the Hammonds Plain Road or the bottleneck that is Bayers Road, shameful.

Fix those and give the vast majority of ratepayers something useful for their money instead of these useless things.