Halifax Transit

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

The widening definitely needs to happen to improve the pace of public transit. It shouldn't take an hour to come in from CP.

Exactly. You cannot have dedicated transit/carpool LANES if you only have one LANE to start with. In places that have these things they typically have 3 or 4 lanes going in the same direction. We have virtually no roads that have that at present, at least for any length of travel. Such is what happens when you fail to build any new roads for half a century while your city continues to grow.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Exactly. You cannot have dedicated transit/carpool LANES if you only have one LANE to start with. In places that have these things they typically have 3 or 4 lanes going in the same direction. We have virtually no roads that have that at present, at least for any length of travel. Such is what happens when you fail to build any new roads for half a century while your city continues to grow.

Its the only solution. Either two additional bus lanes on the outside or a tram down the middle and no buses all the way to CP (which will not happen).

The irony is that the people against the widening are supposed to be pro-public transit.

There is no other alternative to smooth bus traffic and lower the travel time between the highly populated areas of CP and Fairview. Reversing lanes are not enough because they still cause one side of bus traffic to be impeded, which hurts the flow of traffic and causes greater idling and pollution.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

Nobody ever talks about elevated mass transit - skytrain, monorail, etc
Should be less expensive than underground and be able to avoid traffic

It is still pretty expensive though and it's loud and blocks out light. It works well on suburban arterials with medians and multiple lanes on traffic each way so some light gets to nearby sidewalks and buildings. It would be really terrible along a downtown Halifax street; there would be almost no light at street level and people would have trains whizzing by 10 feet away from their third storey windows. Because it is an older and smaller city Halifax doesn't have a lot of the kind of dense suburban areas that work well with this type of system. The commuting distances are also short so going 100 km/h might not be as important. You just don't want to be stuck in traffic going 0 km/h for 30 minutes a day, which sometimes happens in Halifax.

I think the clear answer for the city is to create surface right of ways for transit, but invest money to avoid bottlenecks. The bottlenecks would be elevated or underground. This gives you roughly the same performance at a small fraction at the cost.

It is frustrating that the pendulum has swung completely against road widening, or any collateral damage, and by extension almost any infrastructure project. Many people repeat the slogan that building roads does nothing because it just increases traffic. But that is obviously nonsense. The widened roads carry more traffic and some roads are faster than others. Reality is complicated and good planning can't be managed by a couple of slogans. Instead projects have to be carefully weighed by their specific costs and benefits. Demolishing entire neighbourhoods might be bad but demolishing a few houses to upgrade a major route that's been planned for decades (Bayers) could be a different proposition. The other reality is that most of the low hanging fruit is gone in the Halifax area, so larger investments are needed to get significant improvements. The city's transportation network isn't going to be improved dramatically through a couple of boutique $10M projects, but that's all that has happened for the past 20-30 years.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by someone123

It is still pretty expensive though and it's loud and blocks out light. It works well on suburban arterials with medians and multiple lanes on traffic each way so some light gets to nearby sidewalks and buildings. It would be really terrible along a downtown Halifax street; there would be almost no light at street level and people would have trains whizzing by 10 feet away from their third storey windows. Because it is an older and smaller city Halifax doesn't have a lot of the kind of dense suburban areas that work well with this type of system. The commuting distances are also short so going 100 km/h might not be as important. You just don't want to be stuck in traffic going 0 km/h for 30 minutes a day, which sometimes happens in Halifax.

I think the clear answer for the city is to create surface right of ways for transit, but invest money to avoid bottlenecks. The bottlenecks would be elevated or underground. This gives you roughly the same performance at a small fraction at the cost.

It is frustrating that the pendulum has swung completely against road widening, or any collateral damage, and by extension almost any infrastructure project. Many people repeat the slogan that building roads does nothing because it just increases traffic. But that is obviously nonsense. The widened roads carry more traffic and some roads are faster than others. Reality is complicated and good planning can't be managed by a couple of slogans. Instead projects have to be carefully weighed by their specific costs and benefits. Demolishing entire neighbourhoods might be bad but demolishing a few houses to upgrade a major route that's been planned for decades (Bayers) could be a different proposition. The other reality is that most of the low hanging fruit is gone in the Halifax area, so larger investments are needed to get significant improvements. The city's transportation network isn't going to be improved dramatically through a couple of boutique $10M projects, but that's all that has happened for the past 20-30 years.

There needs to be an efficient way for mass transit to get off the peninsula without mixing with traffic.

...now if only there were some sort of corridor that was wide enough or high enough to fit rail lines.....

[ILoveHalifax]

Originally Posted by someone123

It is still pretty expensive though and it's loud and blocks out light. It works well on suburban arterials with medians and multiple lanes on traffic each way so some light gets to nearby sidewalks and buildings. It would be really terrible along a downtown Halifax street; there would be almost no light at street level and people would have trains whizzing by 10 feet away from their third storey windows. Because it is an older and smaller city Halifax doesn't have a lot of the kind of dense suburban areas that work well with this type of system. The commuting distances are also short so going 100 km/h might not be as important. You just don't want to be stuck in traffic going 0 km/h for 30 minutes a day, which sometimes happens in Halifax.

I think the clear answer for the city is to create surface right of ways for transit, but invest money to avoid bottlenecks. The bottlenecks would be elevated or underground. This gives you roughly the same performance at a small fraction at the cost.

It is frustrating that the pendulum has swung completely against road widening, or any collateral damage, and by extension almost any infrastructure project. Many people repeat the slogan that building roads does nothing because it just increases traffic. But that is obviously nonsense. The widened roads carry more traffic and some roads are faster than others. Reality is complicated and good planning can't be managed by a couple of slogans. Instead projects have to be carefully weighed by their specific costs and benefits. Demolishing entire neighbourhoods might be bad but demolishing a few houses to upgrade a major route that's been planned for decades (Bayers) could be a different proposition. The other reality is that most of the low hanging fruit is gone in the Halifax area, so larger investments are needed to get significant improvements. The city's transportation network isn't going to be improved dramatically through a couple of boutique $10M projects, but that's all that has happened for the past 20-30 years.

I appreciate your comments as you are in BC and aware of the Skytrain there. I agree that you would not want the light to be blocked. Could that be reduced by having only one way on any one street and the opposite direction over a street or two?
What do you know about the people mover in Miami which does not seem to be near as overpowering? I just think it is unlikely that Halifax can easily give up a lane to transit on some very narrow streets. I think no matter what it might be advantageous to only have one way on any specific street and the opposite direction on the next street over even if it is designated lanes

I would suggest one loop on the peninsula Barrington to Gottingen/Agricola to Young/Bayers past HSC and the rotary to Quinpool to Robie to Spring Garden Rd or (Sackville/Morris) back to Barrington/Hollis. I would then limit off peninsula buses to where they meet up with the loop and no further. Possibly 1 or 2 other bus loops on less traveled streets of the peninsula.

[ScovaNotian]

There may be other systems out there that are less overpowering than the SkyTrain. Here is one from Dortmund, Germany:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-Bahn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5xyywgLAt4

[scryer]

I think the clear answer for the city is to create surface right of ways for transit, but invest money to avoid bottlenecks. The bottlenecks would be elevated or underground. This gives you roughly the same performance at a small fraction at the cost.

Seems reasonable enough for me.. however I would be concerned with how fast the trains would be allowed to go on surface level within dense parts of the city.

Could that be reduced by having only one way on any one street and the opposite direction over a street or two?

I'm also in BC and looove the Skytrain. Anyways I think that your idea is definitely possible that you could have a train go on one narrow road in one direction, and then the opposite direction on the street over. My concern with this would be the station design as people would need access to both platforms.

There may be other systems out there that are less overpowering than the SkyTrain. Here is one from Dortmund, Germany:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-Bahn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5xyywgLAt4

Without doing any research my concern would be capacity and speed. To me the H-Bahn doesn't seem like it carries a lot of people and it doesn't look like it's going all that fast. Again, I don't know a lot about it but just from my perspective, I would like to see larger trains and a faster travel speed. I love that you're thinking outside of the box and I would like seeing something innovative being orchestrated by Halifax.

Now when it comes to elevate rail, I find that Canadians can be a little overly sensitive to its shadowing and I can certainly see why. I don't think that we've seen any good examples of a downtown with a relatively "nice" looking elevated line through the core. I think that everyone jumps to images of the Chicago L train in their heads.

Vancouver's Skytrain is a bad example of elevated rail in the centre of the city because the skytrain lines in the downtown area are all underground. The elevated parts we have are built in areas where they don't "disrupt" the street levels, and then the rest of the city will build up around the stations (see Brentwood or Metrotown). So if you guys were to compare to any automated rail system, you should definitely compare it to Montreal's proposed REM system as it cuts through dense parts of the city. Just food for thought.

[Phalanx]

Originally Posted by scryer

Without doing any research my concern would be capacity and speed. To me the H-Bahn doesn't seem like it carries a lot of people and it doesn't look like it's going all that fast. Again, I don't know a lot about it but just from my perspective, I would like to see larger trains and a faster travel speed. I love that you're thinking outside of the box and I would like seeing something innovative being orchestrated by Halifax.

Now when it comes to elevate rail, I find that Canadians can be a little overly sensitive to its shadowing and I can certainly see why. I don't think that we've seen any good examples of a downtown with a relatively "nice" looking elevated line through the core. I think that everyone jumps to images of the Chicago L train in their heads.

Vancouver's Skytrain is a bad example of elevated rain in the centre of the city because the skytrain lines in the downtown area are all underground. The elevated parts we have are built in areas where they don't "disrupt" the street levels, and then the rest of the city will build up around the stations (see Brentwood or Metrotown). So if you guys were to compare to any automated rail system, you should definitely compare it to Montreal's proposed REM system as it cuts through dense parts of the city. Just food for thought.

The example given above is just a relatively lightweight suspended monorail. There are several other examples around the world (seemed to have been popular in Germany in the early-mid 20th century).

Here are a couple of examples in Japan that are minimal impact/look decent in an urban context and with a much higher capacity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shonan_Monorail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiba_Urban_Monorail

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

The example given above is just a relatively lightweight suspended monorail. There are several other examples around the world (seemed to have been popular in Germany in the early-mid 20th century).

Here are a couple of examples in Japan that are minimal impact/look decent in an urban context and with a much higher capacity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shonan_Monorail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiba_Urban_Monorail

I stand corrected . Those are excellent examples.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by someone123

It is frustrating that the pendulum has swung completely against road widening, or any collateral damage, and by extension almost any infrastructure project. Many people repeat the slogan that building roads does nothing because it just increases traffic. But that is obviously nonsense. The widened roads carry more traffic and some roads are faster than others. Reality is complicated and good planning can't be managed by a couple of slogans.

I would love to have a reference that showed that to be BS. But they still seem to be drilling it into the heads of planning students as dogma.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

There needs to be an efficient way for mass transit to get off the peninsula without mixing with traffic.

...now if only there were some sort of corridor that was wide enough or high enough to fit rail lines.....

Bingo. The rail cut should really be the solution for mass transit.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

Bingo. The rail cut should really be the solution for mass transit.

How dare you use common sense in urban planning.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

How dare you use common sense in urban planning.

Unfortunately, some would say that the common sense in this scenario is that "Halifax is too small".

Putting the politics aside for using the rail cut, it is totally financially feasible and the first step could be paving a section and using BRT to build the stations out at the key existing bridges (which need to be rebuilt anyway). Rail could be built in sections afterward to replace the bus.

I wish somebody would mock up a map of it (in the style of the underground or something). That would be cool.

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

How dare you use common sense in urban planning.

The rail cut has been looked at before, both for transit and as an alternate route for trucks. Problems are twofold:

1) Residents adjacent to the rail cut not wanting the noise.
2) CN owns it, and they are hard defenders of their turf.

Number 2 is really the main issue.

Not to say that it would be impossible to figure something out... but I don't think it's all that fair to say anyone is lacking common sense just because the rail cut isn't being used for transit. Do not underestimate the power CN has and the unwillingness they have to give up an inch for anything they don't have to.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

The rail cut has been looked at before, both for transit and as an alternate route for trucks. Problems are twofold:

1) Residents adjacent to the rail cut not wanting the noise.
2) CN owns it, and they are hard defenders of their turf.

Number 2 is really the main issue.

Not to say that it would be impossible to figure something out... but I don't think it's all that fair to say anyone is lacking common sense just because the rail cut isn't being used for transit. Do not underestimate the power CN has and the unwillingness they have to give up an inch for anything they don't have to.

The fact that GO Train uses CN lines, and I am pretty sure that with RER in Montreal, CN is loosing access to the tunnel all speak thaat CN is not to unreasonable.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

Bingo. The rail cut should really be the solution for mass transit.

Aren't they already working on a proposal from VIA rail to use the rail cut for a commuter rail service?



https://globalnews.ca/news/2841283/t...commuter-rail/

https://globalnews.ca/news/2841283/t...commuter-rail/

[Franco401]

Would it be viable to include some capacity for commuter rail in the Third Bridge proposal? The current situation is not ideal as Dartmouth is totally left out of any commuter rail plans.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Aren't they already working on a proposal from VIA rail to use the rail cut for a commuter rail service?



https://globalnews.ca/news/2841283/t...commuter-rail/

https://globalnews.ca/news/2841283/t...commuter-rail/

We hope, but I think they'd still have to sort out the development of the stations (which I think could be done at the same time as rebuilding all of the bridges).

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Franco401

Would it be viable to include some capacity for commuter rail in the Third Bridge proposal? The current situation is not ideal as Dartmouth is totally left out of any commuter rail plans.

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

We hope, but I think they'd still have to sort out the development of the stations (which I think could be done at the same time as rebuilding all of the bridges).

A total rethink would be ideal, incorporating the rebuilding of the MacKay and a possible third crossing (too late for the MacDonald, I think), but I worry that, with the speed at which Halifax works out infrastructure, it might be several generations before it's in place (if ever).

I hope that they at least act on the CN proposal to get that in place in the next couple of years, while keeping options open to expand it as mentioned.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

The rail cut has been looked at before, both for transit and as an alternate route for trucks. Problems are twofold:

1) Residents adjacent to the rail cut not wanting the noise.
2) CN owns it, and they are hard defenders of their turf.

Number 2 is really the main issue.

Not to say that it would be impossible to figure something out... but I don't think it's all that fair to say anyone is lacking common sense just because the rail cut isn't being used for transit. Do not underestimate the power CN has and the unwillingness they have to give up an inch for anything they don't have to.

I think it would make far more sense to use the old north end rail ROW boundaries and run new lines parallel to Barrington as far as Scotia Square/Cogswell. If you wanted to get really ambitious, make Hollis one lane for vehicles, one lane for rail, getting rid of the parking and bike lane, and do the same northbound on Barrington to form a loop down around Terminal Rd.

Hey, it's only money...