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  #41  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 3:49 PM
worldlyhaligonian worldlyhaligonian is offline
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Originally Posted by halifaxboyns View Post

With steadily increasing oil prices, it does not make economic sense to be planning road widenings when most employees may not be able to afford to travel in a private car. When we choose this direction, we severely limit our ability to ensure reliable transportation options for our economy in the future.


The rest is here.
I don't specifically agree with the bayers road widening, but I think the washmill like underpass was an important part of connecting BL to CP. Regardless of your opinion on suburbia/business parks (I don't like either) the fact is we have them, so they might as well be better connected to the rest of the city.

Furthermore, its the fault of HRM for not putting maximum cost clauses in their contracts. Its that simple, these overruns are a legal issue... not a development issue.

Additionally, I wish Watts would stop talking about macroeconomic issues as if she is somehow versed in them.

The shift toward hybrid-electric, electric, and hydrogen cars is happening right now. To argue that nobody is going to be driving cars in the future is like saying nobody will be driving bicycles because there will be no food in the future. Its a bogus statement and isn't even true from a trending perspective.
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  #42  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 3:54 PM
worldlyhaligonian worldlyhaligonian is offline
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Thomas Malthus.
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  #43  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 5:04 PM
halifaxboyns halifaxboyns is offline
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Oh your responding to her opinion piece; I thought you felt her opinion's were mine lol. The widening, I'm just not comfortable with unless transit is the main goal. A transit/car pool lane combined with queue jumping is fine, but the additional lanes shouldn't be for cars.

About Bedford Highway - yes you might get 4 lanes between Kearney Lake and Larry Uteck, but then what? The lanes would narrow again, creating another bottleneck. You'd just be moving the bottleneck to different locations and not solving it.
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  #44  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 6:07 PM
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Newer car technology is coming but having a good transit system will remain a huge advantage for the foreseeable future. Even if everybody switches to hybrid cars, transit will still be more efficient and therefore cheaper. It's very popular in cities that have reliable trains running at a decent frequency. Haligonians think they don't like transit but really they don't like standing on a bus in slow traffic. Nobody does.

Part of the problem here is that transit improvements are an order of magnitude too small for the city. For some reason it is reasonable to contemplate billion dollar highway plans in Halifax but a $10M transit terminal in Dartmouth causes years of waffling.

Now is absolutely the time to be looking at things like LRT, streetcars, and dedicated busways.

As I've said, I'm not against the Bayers widening but it should be turned into an opportunity to add transit-only lanes. HOV lanes are another possibility.
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  #45  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 7:18 PM
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Newer car technology is coming but having a good transit system will remain a huge advantage for the foreseeable future. Even if everybody switches to hybrid cars, transit will still be more efficient and therefore cheaper. It's very popular in cities that have reliable trains running at a decent frequency. Haligonians think they don't like transit but really they don't like standing on a bus in slow traffic. Nobody does.

Part of the problem here is that transit improvements are an order of magnitude too small for the city. For some reason it is reasonable to contemplate billion dollar highway plans in Halifax but a $10M transit terminal in Dartmouth causes years of waffling.

Now is absolutely the time to be looking at things like LRT, streetcars, and dedicated busways.

As I've said, I'm not against the Bayers widening but it should be turned into an opportunity to add transit-only lanes. HOV lanes are another possibility.
The problem is that the kind of absolute NIMBY-ism promoted by the likes of Blumenthal and Watts will prevent that from ever happening. The people who live on Bayers Rd are living in a typical Halifax dream world that nothing has changed since they bought their house in 1961. Watts and her ilk cater to that mindset by being opposed to any change and talking instead about pie-in-the-sky "sustainable alternatives" that do not exist on paper anywhere. Until someone stands up and says, "sorry, but change is needed and it WILL affect you" this kind of impediment will remain and keep Halifax in the ditch. People opposed to this last night were talking Transit options in the context of taking AWAY existing lanes on Bayers Rd to make them available for buses, which is patently absurd. Until we get past that kind of thinking everyone will continue to sit in traffic.
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  #46  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 7:26 PM
worldlyhaligonian worldlyhaligonian is offline
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Sorry halifaxboyns, I didn't mean to sound like I was referring to you. I agree with mostly everything you say.

Its all well and good to talk about transit, but why don't they freaking propose something?!!!!!!!

I want to see an LRT or a real BRT proposal from one of these councillors. I'm talking about the railcut and other routes!!!

If they don't want to spend the $300m on widening the road, at least give us an indication of what they would do with the money. Nothing is going to happen if there aren't alternative proposals. Isn't this their job???
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  #47  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 7:32 PM
worldlyhaligonian worldlyhaligonian is offline
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Newer car technology is coming but having a good transit system will remain a huge advantage for the foreseeable future. Even if everybody switches to hybrid cars, transit will still be more efficient and therefore cheaper. It's very popular in cities that have reliable trains running at a decent frequency. Haligonians think they don't like transit but really they don't like standing on a bus in slow traffic. Nobody does.

Part of the problem here is that transit improvements are an order of magnitude too small for the city. For some reason it is reasonable to contemplate billion dollar highway plans in Halifax but a $10M transit terminal in Dartmouth causes years of waffling.

Now is absolutely the time to be looking at things like LRT, streetcars, and dedicated busways.

As I've said, I'm not against the Bayers widening but it should be turned into an opportunity to add transit-only lanes. HOV lanes are another possibility.
For sure... I was just implying that peole are still going to drive cars and we are still going to have to grow and maintain car infrastructure. Plenty of people still drive cars in europe, and northern europe still spends on both car and public transit infrastructure.

Hell, when I lived in europe every city had massive, multi-lane ring roads AND buses, trams, and LRT. Now that's a transportation network.

We can't ignore the fact that bicycles aren't the be all and end all, and don't make that much sense in a city with such a big footprint. I live on the peninsula, and so do these councillors... but we have to think about everybody here... especially when they are anti-height, how are we going to reach the densities to make everything sustainable? Its all mindboggling to me how they can contradict themselves so much. These people seem to be oblivious to this.
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  #48  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 7:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Keith P. View Post
The problem is that the kind of absolute NIMBY-ism promoted by the likes of Blumenthal and Watts will prevent that from ever happening. The people who live on Bayers Rd are living in a typical Halifax dream world that nothing has changed since they bought their house in 1961. Watts and her ilk cater to that mindset by being opposed to any change and talking instead about pie-in-the-sky "sustainable alternatives" that do not exist on paper anywhere. Until someone stands up and says, "sorry, but change is needed and it WILL affect you" this kind of impediment will remain and keep Halifax in the ditch. People opposed to this last night were talking Transit options in the context of taking AWAY existing lanes on Bayers Rd to make them available for buses, which is patently absurd. Until we get past that kind of thinking everyone will continue to sit in traffic.
Yeah, I agree that transit is often a pretext. A minority don't want anything to change so they waffle back and forth to give the illusion of progress.

Back in 1961 it was just as obvious as today that Bayers Road was going to be a heavy artery that would expand over time. Also note that the people who moved to that area were one of the first waves to buy cars and commute in through the older areas -- they turned inner streets like Robie into traffic arteries but don't want the same to happen to their area, which they probably got a bargain on way back when because everybody knew what would happen.
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  #49  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 7:42 PM
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For sure... I was just implying that peole are still going to drive cars and we are still going to have to grow and maintain car infrastructure. Plenty of people still drive cars in europe, and northern europe still spends on both car and public transit infrastructure.
Yep. As usual the issue is not black and white, but some people prefer to think of things in simple yet incorrect terms.

There really seem to be people who will read about peak oil or whatever and then it's like a switch goes off in their head and suddenly they are in "CARS = BAD" mode, ready to oppose all spending on new roads. It's crazy.

Halifax needs to have serious modal share targets and work toward, say, getting people to use transit 20-30% of the time in 10-15 years (that is very aggressive). In order to accomplish that the city would have to invest hundreds of millions or into the billions but it would be worth it. Maybe this could be done with buses but I doubt it.
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  #50  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 7:43 PM
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I don't know if I fully agree with Keith's comment about Blumenthal and Watts. I gather from Watt's editorial letter that she wants to focus more on transit; which to me seems to say that if an expansion was necessary that would facilitate better transit flow then she would be okay with the sacrifice necessary. Blumenthal however, I think wouldn't care what it's for - he would be a definate no.

What I gather from Watt's statement is she'd rather see the money invested in better transit options along the route before widening and that widening should be a last resort. It's an interesting thought, but it makes me wonder if the road flow would improve only through minor things like putting indented bus stops along the road and some queue jumps at each light...I may be reading into that.

I'm supposed to actually meet up with her while I'm home in a social setting so I may ask her what she meant.
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  #51  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 10:18 PM
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Originally Posted by halifaxboyns View Post
I don't know if I fully agree with Keith's comment about Blumenthal and Watts. I gather from Watt's editorial letter that she wants to focus more on transit; which to me seems to say that if an expansion was necessary that would facilitate better transit flow then she would be okay with the sacrifice necessary. Blumenthal however, I think wouldn't care what it's for - he would be a definate no.

What I gather from Watt's statement is she'd rather see the money invested in better transit options along the route before widening and that widening should be a last resort. It's an interesting thought, but it makes me wonder if the road flow would improve only through minor things like putting indented bus stops along the road and some queue jumps at each light...I may be reading into that.

I'm supposed to actually meet up with her while I'm home in a social setting so I may ask her what she meant.
Count how many times she uses the word "sustainable" in your convo, and report back.

The problem is that left-wingers like her will always want to force the masses onto publicly-run, union-made, lowest-common-denominator, poor-quality transit services. They hate the freedom a private vehicle provides. Even if I had a mythical zero-emission vehicle that ran on solar power, she would oppose my use of it. And they will not force the transit operation to get better. They just want to throw more money at the existing inept service. MT's opposition to rail-based service is a good example of that.

The call for better transit options around here is an exercise in hypocrisy. We have lots of buses that run empty much of the time. We have people moving to areas where there is no transit, and they do so happily. The fact is, MT does not run a service people want to use for the most part. Transit here is inconvenient, slow, inefficient, dirty, unpleasant and at times unsafe. It is a last-resort choice. Those who say they want it, often do not use it even if it is available. I bet not one of the elected members there last night got there without a car. I bet the vast majority of people who called for transit instead of widening did the same.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Halifax.
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  #52  
Old Posted Sep 15, 2011, 10:41 PM
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I've often wondered why Metro Transit is so against rail-based service. Is it because of unions? Is it because they just can't be bothered to change?

Imagine an automated, elevated electric train system running on the peninsula. You could run very small trains every few minutes at all hours (have slower one-way service for a couple hours around 3-4 a.m. for maintenance) -- this would be prohibitively expensive with drivers. People would love the service because it would be fast. Suburban express buses could connect to the train line and transit-oriented development could support tons of people near stations.

It's interesting to note that Vancouver recently got a somewhat gold-plated/bloated 19.2 kilometre elevated/subway, automated line with wide cars and a water crossing for $2B. What if you wanted only 8 km? Cut out all underground portions and the water crossing? Built some at-grade instead of elevated segments? Purchased fewer and smaller cars?
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  #53  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2011, 12:00 AM
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[QUOTE=Wishblade;5410953I think we require commuter rail first and foremost but if the city isn't going to even entertain the thought of it, than the widening is the next best option. Expanding bus service on this roadway the way it is will do practically nothing to alleviate congestion.[/QUOTE]

The trouble is that the next best option is no longer good enough. We are a city of 400k and heading for 500k and these band aid solutions are not going to let Halifax do what it wants to do, GROW. Someone has to have the balls to hurt feelings and step on toes to get us out of this small city mentality. If we don't grow we will wither. I feel very strongly that that is true.
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  #54  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2011, 1:07 AM
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They hate the freedom a private vehicle provides.
Hahahahha! How can you be taken seriously by anyone with sweeping statements like this?

I laughed out loud. Ludicrous.

This sounds like something out of Dr. Strangelove, or an NRA convention when Heston was still the leader.
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  #55  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2011, 4:15 AM
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The problem is that left-wingers like her will always want to force the masses onto publicly-run, union-made, lowest-common-denominator, poor-quality transit services. They hate the freedom a private vehicle provides. Even if I had a mythical zero-emission vehicle that ran on solar power, she would oppose my use of it. And they will not force the transit operation to get better. They just want to throw more money at the existing inept service. MT's opposition to rail-based service is a good example of that.
So because I'm a practicing urban planner I'm left wing too? I don't agree with this statement at all, but I will admit I would've when I first became a planner. I've attended enough conferences and talked to enough vehicle designers, TOD planners and transit people to realize that if HRM is ever going to go down the road of a rapid transit system (LRT, Subway or whatever)...they need to think about the passenger first, not last. That's been the biggest mistake that cities have made and you may be right that they still have the idea of the poor comfort buses that we see around. But you do have to give MT some credit when they did the link buses, because the seating on those buses is very nice compared to typical buses and they are air conditioned. They finally got that part right...

If HRM is going to build an LRT or a streetcar, they have to start with the comfort of the passenger first...otherwise the whole thing is mute. If it's the same crappy seats or uncomfortable environment, people aren't going to get out of their cars.

I posted this video before and I'm going to post it again - the person talking from the City of Vancouver makes very good points that reinforces what I'm saying about passengers first; talking about the Bombardier streetcar from Vancouver 2010. Here is the video.

But in the end, you can buy the best cars in the world and still people will not take transit - it's their choice. Personally, I'd take it simply because I'd live downtown, but that's just me.
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  #56  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2011, 10:56 AM
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I would love to have a street car system like that running here in Halifax. Thanks for posting the video.
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  #57  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2011, 5:05 PM
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But in the end, you can buy the best cars in the world and still people will not take transit - it's their choice. Personally, I'd take it simply because I'd live downtown, but that's just me.
Individuals make decisions on a whim sometimes but this all averages out when you're talking about thousands of people. If you build a convenient (fast, reliable, high frequencies, goes to necessary locations) and comfortable system people will use it. In fact, in big cities they gladly use transit that is fast and reliable but NOT comfortable -- the bar for getting people on transit is actually quite low.

Metro Transit's #1 problem by far seems to be that the buses are slow. They sit in the same traffic cars do plus they have low frequencies so they can never be competitive. In the absolute best case buses are still somewhat slower than a car because they have stops. The only people willing to waste an hour to get across town are those who have no alternatives.
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  #58  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2011, 6:56 PM
halifaxboyns halifaxboyns is offline
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Individuals make decisions on a whim sometimes but this all averages out when you're talking about thousands of people. If you build a convenient (fast, reliable, high frequencies, goes to necessary locations) and comfortable system people will use it. In fact, in big cities they gladly use transit that is fast and reliable but NOT comfortable -- the bar for getting people on transit is actually quite low.

Metro Transit's #1 problem by far seems to be that the buses are slow. They sit in the same traffic cars do plus they have low frequencies so they can never be competitive. In the absolute best case buses are still somewhat slower than a car because they have stops. The only people willing to waste an hour to get across town are those who have no alternatives.
That's a very good point. Part of the reason people dislike the C-train here in Cowtown is because of the 7th avenue corridor and the fact the trains are stuck dealing with traffic lights. They don't get priority; it's a standard light cycle; so if something happens that the train starts to move out of a station on a yellow light - they have to wait it out until it's their turn.

I wonder if maybe the way to proceed with any widening is to strategically pick areas to widen that would be more beneficial to buses. So say widen the road space around the Romans intersection to get the buses out of the way and provide a queue jump for buses to get ahead? Then they merge back into traffic as they close in on the ramp outbound to the bi-hi? The same on the inbound, the lane is created as they come in from the burbs, then queue jump at the intersection and have an indented bus stop and then merge back into traffic as they continue up Bayers?

Small strategic improvements that benefit transit, versus cars? This way if you combine that with no parking on the main road during rush hours, you might not have to widen the road?
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  #59  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2011, 9:31 PM
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Hahahahha! How can you be taken seriously by anyone with sweeping statements like this?

I laughed out loud. Ludicrous.

This sounds like something out of Dr. Strangelove, or an NRA convention when Heston was still the leader.
No, it is the belief of the left. Surely you are well-read enough to realize that the Eastern European nations of the late 20th century actively discouraged private transportation in order to maintain central control. You must limit the freedoms of the proletariat if you are going to maintain govt control over them. The left not only wants your money in the way of high taxes, but they also want to make you dependent upon the govt. One way to do this is to control their movements.

Central planning is not all that much different. It is inherently anti-property rights and anti-freedom. While I do not personally subscribe to the theory espoused by some of a total absence of govt planning, where you could do anything on your property that you want, the degree to which it occurs is where the art comes in. The left would demand far more in the way of planning control than many would find acceptable. I heard a discussion today about "sandwich board" signs which illustrates the matter quite well - businesses who use such signs to promote today's special or whatever, and the usual heavy hand of HRM trying to ban them based upon some alleged threat to public safety or esthetics. Ridiculous.
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  #60  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2011, 10:47 PM
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I wonder if maybe the way to proceed with any widening is to strategically pick areas to widen that would be more beneficial to buses. So say widen the road space around the Romans intersection to get the buses out of the way and provide a queue jump for buses to get ahead? Then they merge back into traffic as they close in on the ramp outbound to the bi-hi? The same on the inbound, the lane is created as they come in from the burbs, then queue jump at the intersection and have an indented bus stop and then merge back into traffic as they continue up Bayers?

Small strategic improvements that benefit transit, versus cars? This way if you combine that with no parking on the main road during rush hours, you might not have to widen the road?
A lot of the problems could be fixed with such little effort that you wonder why it hasn't been done long ago. I drove Bayers in both directions today. Outbound, they allow parking on the stretch from Oxford to Connaught. That is simply nuts; get rid of that. Other impediments are driveways and crosswalks. Those would be tougher to fix.

The lights at Romans are always a problem. If you simply eliminated that intersection entirely you would not only help the flow on Bayers but eliminate a shortcutting problem. I say, do it. There are other routes that can handle that traffic.There should be no bus stops on Bayers without a pullover lane - build those. The intersection with the HSC is crazy bad - redesign it. The inbound approach at Connaught is perpetually overloaded and the left turn lane always backed up - redesign it for more cars to flow, not a tough job.

All of those, though, are simply stopgaps. It will eventually need widening.
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