Cogswell Interchange

[Empire]

One of the many things I find odd about the design of Cogswell Interchange street alignment is that you have to change lanes three times to go straight from Barrington North to Barrington South.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by DartmouthSteve

Bergen, Norway has a metro population of 470,000. Smaller than Halifax. Their first LRT line was completed in 2010.

Again, I'm not sure where the argument that Halifax isn't large enough for light rail comes from. Subway, no. Maybe never. But LRT would go a long way in alleviating congestion.

Yes. It depends on factors like what technology is used, how it's done (tunnels, surface, elevated, stations at grade, etc.), and how much the city will grow. These days there's a lot of growth and upzoning and there are increasingly large nodes of density that can drive demand at the stations.

I find most discussion of transit in Halifax really depressing and unsophisticated. You have the train to Yarmouth people, the ones who think any transit is like the monorail on the Simpsons, and the ones who want 150 km of subway. Outdated, narrow HRM reports on commuter rail do not help. Maybe the NS transport organization will do a good study and guide the discussion somewhat. It should not be unrealistic for Halifax to build 1 short-ish (for example, downtown to Lacewood) line of LRT or streetcar-like transit in a mix of semi-dedicated ROWs and transit lanes with signaling priority.

[someone123]

Just a tangent but I've wondered about the impact of battery electric buses on transit tunnels. Seattle has/had a downtown transit tunnel to speed up buses that also served suburban areas (they have since built LRT). Due to the emissions it had to be large and have very good ventilation.

Tunnels could have been built in a cut-and-cover fashion under Cogswell and extended a bit into downtown (say, over to the Maritime Centre) with some further digging.

[Keith P.]

I often see videos from visitors to Europe and elsewhere showing electric streetcars running on rails that seem to do good business. They would seem to offer a good option for DT access here, except for one thing. Our antiquated street network offers no place to put them since many/most of them in the core have never been changed since the 18th century. But at some point one must bite the bullet and do a useful loop from points on the edge of the city to bring commuters into the core. As was said, forget pie in the sky talk of subways and stop thinking about buses intermingled with traffic on surface streets, which have never worked well here for decades. And forget restricting those routes further with bike lanes. I can imagine a streetcar loop (as a start) running from the general area of the Fairview Overpass where commuters from the suburbs could pick it up, going along Joe Howe or down Connaught, heading into the core along Quinpool and Robie before getting to destinations DT and then looping back. Ambitious for sure but you never hear much talk about it even as a possibility. I do not understand that.

[Summerville]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I often see videos from visitors to Europe and elsewhere showing electric streetcars running on rails that seem to do good business. They would seem to offer a good option for DT access here, except for one thing. Our antiquated street network offers no place to put them since many/most of them in the core have never been changed since the 18th century. But at some point one must bite the bullet and do a useful loop from points on the edge of the city to bring commuters into the core. As was said, forget pie in the sky talk of subways and stop thinking about buses intermingled with traffic on surface streets, which have never worked well here for decades. And forget restricting those routes further with bike lanes. I can imagine a streetcar loop (as a start) running from the general area of the Fairview Overpass where commuters from the suburbs could pick it up, going along Joe Howe or down Connaught, heading into the core along Quinpool and Robie before getting to destinations DT and then looping back. Ambitious for sure but you never hear much talk about it even as a possibility. I do not understand that.

Interesting idea. For what it is worth, there is still a rail corridor running through the Irving shipyard. It’s currently an easement but you could run a tram through africville, pier 9 Irving shipyard and navy dockyard parking lot

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I often see videos from visitors to Europe and elsewhere showing electric streetcars running on rails that seem to do good business. They would seem to offer a good option for DT access here, except for one thing. Our antiquated street network offers no place to put them since many/most of them in the core have never been changed since the 18th century.

I don't know if it could be politically viable (due to minds of small town voters spiraling out of control at the thought of anything truly new ever being built in NS) but I think streetcars with some tunneled portions would work great in Halifax.

I think the expense of these is somewhat inflated in the public imagination because they are conflated with subways and the costs cited come from building large underground stations and tens of km of tunnels. In Halifax's case it would be something like 3 km of tunnel with smaller platforms that could be built at cut-and-cover sites or above ground. Doing this downtown might not be that much more expensive than building that Mill Cove ferry, which has now gone up to around $300M. It would produce large dividends by providing higher capacity, more reliable transit, taking the buses off the streets, and generally making downtown more appealing.

Out around the Commons, Robie Street, Bayers, and so on, maybe even Cogswell itself, there is space for the streetcar to run at grade separate from traffic with signal priority. It's just a small inner area that doesn't have space. Metro Halifax also isn't so large people need to commute 50 km and take a bullet train. A streetcar moving at 50 km/h without getting stuck in traffic would be a huge upgrade.

[Keith P.]

Certainly the abandoned rail ROW between Fairview Cove and the DT would be ideal, but I wonder about how difficult it might be to gain access to those areas around the shipyard/dockyard now. Worth exploring no doubt regardless. Reversing direction might be challenging unless you tunnel under Duke or SGR which sounds expensive, but I'm no engineer.

On the surface a simpler option might be a tunnel or station under the Windsor St exchange leading to Connaught where if could run down the median to Quinpool, and from there head towards Brunswick. All of those could be surface routes. Eliminating curbside parking on Quinpool should have happened years ago so that could accommodate this. HRM periodically threatens to close SGR to vehicles, so do that, turn it at Brunswick and SGR and go up SGR to Robie to use the median there to get back to Quinpool.

[Jonovision]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Certainly the abandoned rail ROW between Fairview Cove and the DT would be ideal, but I wonder about how difficult it might be to gain access to those areas around the shipyard/dockyard now. Worth exploring no doubt regardless. Reversing direction might be challenging unless you tunnel under Duke or SGR which sounds expensive, but I'm no engineer.

If they were dual ended trams you wouldn't need to turn them around. Just have a switch in front of the station and the tram can reverse out and keep going in the opposite direction.

[IanWatson]

It may just be lower traffic volumes with summer vacations, but I gotta say, ever since the work on Upper Water completed traffic flow through the Cogswell district has been great.

[MastClimberPro]

It will be interesting to see if these few blocks of now very functional city streets remain so as the blocks between get developed.

[IanWatson]

Now that the interesections are all fully operational and school is back in session it's interesting to see how it's all working out.

In general, I would say it's great! There's a little bit of backup coming into downtown in the morning, which is worsened by a lane drop in front of Spice due to construction, but nothing unreasonable for downtown traffic.

The bus lanes are still not fully functioning as intended. Buses definitely get to move through faster than general traffic, but I still see a lot of cars driving down them.

Having the fully-connected bike route has been incredible. It's definitely having an effect on how people get to work. For the first time ever the bike racks at my building are completely full. On the weekends I've also been frequently seeing families with small kids (on their own bikes) biking downtown, which is compeltely new. Also many more people with kids on cargo bikes.

Also seeing a lot more people walking around that end of downtown.

My main complaint now is that HRM needs to bring back aggressive towing on Hollis Street. The left lane is "no stopping" between 7-9am. Before Cogswell they would have a fleet of tow trucks ready at 7am to immediately start towing people. They stopped it during construction since traffic on Hollis was so low. Now the traffic is back but the tow trucks aren't, and there's a lot of people who for some reason seem to think "no stopping" doesn't apply to them.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Having the fully-connected bike route has been incredible. It's definitely having an effect on how people get to work. For the first time ever the bike racks at my building are completely full. On the weekends I've also been frequently seeing families with small kids (on their own bikes) biking downtown, which is compeltely new. Also many more people with kids on cargo bikes.

The bike infrastructure has really made it much, much easier to get to and from the below-the-Citadel part of downtown by bike. It's still a bit of a climb when leaving via Water Street and the Barrington Greenway, simply due to geography, but it's manageable, whereas before it was...not.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

I've been through this new roadway a couple of times now. I can say this... I found it impossible to get myself out of the bus lane once I realized I was in it. The traffic was bumper to bumper and and the likelihood of another driver taking notice of my signal in such a short distance and given the information overload of signs etc... unlikely. With no bus in sight, it did occur to me that maybe all bus lanes could activate only in the presence of a bus otherwise be a regular traffic lane. Of course, for this to work, drivers would have to put down their cell phones and pay attention to their surroundings.

[Keith P.]

One of these years, I'll have to venture downtown again to see the wonders HRM has wrought there. I have not driven through here since before the interchange was demolished.

[MonctonDowntown]

It appears that the Overlook Park is currently being built.

Here is live webcam screenshot with park shown in bottom left corner:


Here is overview of where it fits into the over Cogswell District:


Here is what Overlook Park will look like looking East from the top:


Here is what Overlook Park will look like looking West from the bottom next to Barrington Street:

[Empire]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

One of these years, I'll have to venture downtown again to see the wonders HRM has wrought there. I have not driven through here since before the interchange was demolished.

If you are driving form Barrington north you will have to make three lane changes to reach Barrington south at the Delta.....

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by MonctonDowntown

It appears that the Overlook Park is currently being built.

Here is live webcam screenshot with park shown in bottom left corner:


Here is overview of where it fits into the over Cogswell District:


Here is what Overlook Park will look like looking East from the top:


Here is what Overlook Park will look like looking West from the bottom next to Barrington Street:

Thanks for sharing. I wonder how long until the Trademart building is replaced? It's feeling increasingly low-use/low-scale for this area.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

I've been through this new roadway a couple of times now. I can say this... I found it impossible to get myself out of the bus lane once I realized I was in it. The traffic was bumper to bumper and and the likelihood of another driver taking notice of my signal in such a short distance and given the information overload of signs etc... unlikely. With no bus in sight, it did occur to me that maybe all bus lanes could activate only in the presence of a bus otherwise be a regular traffic lane. Of course, for this to work, drivers would have to put down their cell phones and pay attention to their surroundings.

I was in Halifax over the weekend (my youngest son was getting married), and did a considerable amount of driving around (different wedding venues etc).

I noticed the bus/HOV lanes which are new since the last time I did any significant driving around Halifax. One thing that I noticed is that these lanes (when present) were very short, often lasting no more than a block or two, leading me to wonder if they were actually accomplishing anything.

What do you guys think? Are the HOV lanes worth the effort???

FWIW, I didn't have any real difficulty navigating the new Cogswell interchange (although I think I may have committed an illegal lane change going through the roundabout). No harm done though.

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I noticed the bus/HOV lanes which are new since the last time I did any significant driving around Halifax. One thing that I noticed is that these lanes (when present) were very short, often lasting no more than a block or two, leading me to wonder if they were actually accomplishing anything.

What do you guys think? Are the HOV lanes worth the effort???

I definitely appreciate the ones on Barrington north of the bridge. It cuts my commute time on the bus substantially compared to when I drive. The ones in the Cogswell project area are... meh.

On a grand scale, yes I do think they're worth it. Somewhat like the bike lane network, they've histroically been limited in utility as they've been added on a piecemeal basis. However, as we get closer to having a proper network of them it's definitely starting to hit a critical mass where I see a real difference in my experience riding the bus (same with the bike lane network hitting a critical mass).

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by MonctonDowntown

It appears that the Overlook Park is currently being built.

Here is live webcam screenshot with park shown in bottom left corner:


Here is overview of where it fits into the over Cogswell District:


Here is what Overlook Park will look like looking East from the top:


Here is what Overlook Park will look like looking West from the bottom next to Barrington Street:

They are indeed. Though it looks like they've deviated from the design in those renderings. The centre part is shaping up to be a large ramp, while the stairs are relegated to the north side of the park.