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View Poll Results: How can we deal with the growing issue of crossing Halifax Harbour?
New Bridge (Third Crossing) 31 39.74%
Expand existing Mackay Bridge 2 2.56%
Total Replacement of a Current Bridge 6 7.69%
Tunnel 22 28.21%
More or Faster Ferries 15 19.23%
Leave it alone and use better mass transit options 21 26.92%
Other 2 2.56%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 78. You may not vote on this poll

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  #121  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2014, 2:52 PM
DigitalNinja DigitalNinja is offline
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I don't think that the per lane use of measure is very good. Anyone in all of Halifax can use the bridges any time of day. Also I'm not too sure about those other cities that you mentioned but I would think that the way Halifax is laid out people cross from both sides to get to work. There is a lot of business in dartmouth and burnside but also in halifax peninsula. Also the metric for measure on a bridge like the McDonald would be different as well. It's a bridge that doesn't lead to any highways it goes straight to downtown streets that can't handle a high volume of traffic. Where as Vancouver bridges or montreal can mostly lead to highways Halifax bridges really don't besides one side of the Mckay. This aspect alone greatly reduces the amount of traffic each lane can handle.
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  #122  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2014, 3:01 PM
rkannegi rkannegi is offline
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Originally Posted by Drybrain View Post
Nova Scotia in fourth place for per capita debt, actually: Newfoundland, Ontario and Quebec (in escalating order of indebtedness) are more burdened than us. PEI and NB have marginally less debt, and Manitoba's not far behind.

I'm not sure why we're so comfortable in Nova Scotia making dire assumptions and running with them, but I hear this all the time: 'Nova Scotia is bankrupt' or 'Nova Scotia has the most debt' or 'Nova Scotia has the highest unemployment.'

Untrue statements like the above at accepted wisdom around here, and it seem like a lot of times they're used to argue against public spending on anything but the pothole repair. The no-frills-cause-we're-broke mentality is not just frustrating, but based in a pretty substantial misread of out actual situation.

Anyway, a bit off-topic.
Financial Post Article from a year ago:

http://business.financialpost.com/20...s-they-appear/

That "no-frills-because-we're-broke" mentality needs to be broken. It's even holding up getting more of Highway 104 twinned, let alone getting the Burnside Expressway and Highway 113 off the ground, and holding up a bunch of other things too, like getting a proper highway systems interchange in Bedford, which would certainly help with the increasingly frequent Harbour Bridge closure issue that usually plagues high-sided vehicles.

So you're right, NS is fourth for debt on both a per capita basis and also on a % of GDP basis. Although, at some income levels (but not all levels), NS now has the highest income taxes in Canada (combined federal and provincial).

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html

Looking at corporate taxes, ironically from the NS Department of Finance website, NS's corporate taxes, except for the small business rate, are the highest in Canada:

http://www.novascotia.ca/finance/en/...etaxrates.aspx

Until the "no-frills-because-we're-broke" mentality is broken in NS, I still think the fiscal/political situation in NS still warrants having a new "Welcome to Nova Scotia" sign erected on eastbound Highway 104 at Amherst that would read the following as a warning to newcomers to NS:

Welcome to Nova Scotia

DANGER

High Taxes Ahead
High Prices Ahead
Low Wages Ahead
Over Regulation Ahead
Bad Government Ahead

TURN AROUND WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

Next U Turn Western Canada, 2.5KM Ahead at Exit 2

Now, of course, I know that if anyone actually daringly put up a sign like this, NSTIR would literally have a tear down crew dispatched in a matter of minutes!

Regards,

Richard Kannegiesser
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  #123  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2014, 3:22 PM
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Nouvellecosse Nouvellecosse is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DigitalNinja View Post
I don't think that the per lane use of measure is very good. Anyone in all of Halifax can use the bridges any time of day. Also I'm not too sure about those other cities that you mentioned but I would think that the way Halifax is laid out people cross from both sides to get to work. There is a lot of business in dartmouth and burnside but also in halifax peninsula. Also the metric for measure on a bridge like the McDonald would be different as well. It's a bridge that doesn't lead to any highways it goes straight to downtown streets that can't handle a high volume of traffic. Where as Vancouver bridges or montreal can mostly lead to highways Halifax bridges really don't besides one side of the Mckay. This aspect alone greatly reduces the amount of traffic each lane can handle.
If the commute pattern here is more bi-directional than in other cities then that would actually allow our bridges to be used more efficiently than with a one-way commute since both directions would be utilized rather than just one direction being super-busy with the other direction under-utilized. As for the type of bridges, Vancouver is almost identical to here in the sense that one of the bridges is a freeway bridge like the MacKay (Second Narrows) while the other is not. The Lions Gate bridge is actually almost identical to the MacDonald Bridge including that it has 3 road lanes with one reversible lane in the center. Montreal is similar as well with it's mix of freeway and local road bridges with the Champlain Bridge, Mercier and the tunnel being freeways and the Cartier and Victoria Bridges are local.

If you can find the actual traffic volume the different bridges support, then you might have a case. But otherwise, I don't see much difference.
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  #124  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2014, 3:32 PM
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curnhalio curnhalio is offline
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Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax View Post
Very interesting figures. How many more people should be added to include those in Sackville and Bedford who cross the bridge to Halifax?
Or people from Clayton Park/Timberlea who use the MacKay to get to Burnside?
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  #125  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2014, 3:36 PM
rkannegi rkannegi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DigitalNinja View Post
I don't think that the per lane use of measure is very good. Anyone in all of Halifax can use the bridges any time of day. Also I'm not too sure about those other cities that you mentioned but I would think that the way Halifax is laid out people cross from both sides to get to work. There is a lot of business in dartmouth and burnside but also in halifax peninsula. Also the metric for measure on a bridge like the McDonald would be different as well. It's a bridge that doesn't lead to any highways it goes straight to downtown streets that can't handle a high volume of traffic. Where as Vancouver bridges or montreal can mostly lead to highways Halifax bridges really don't besides one side of the Mckay. This aspect alone greatly reduces the amount of traffic each lane can handle.
I remember reading a publication in Thunder Bay a while back that showed the capacity of each lane in a given class of road facility:

Local road: 200 vehicles per hour/lane
Collector: 400 vehicles per hour/lane
Minor Arterial (HRM Major Collector): 600 vehicles per hour/lane
Major Arterial (HRM Arterial): 800 vehicles per hour/lane
Expressway: 1000 vehicles per hour/lane (widely spaced traffic signals like on Burnside Drive)

Fully Grade-separated Freeway: 1200 to 1800 vehicles per hour (a vehicle every 2 to 3 seconds in each lane)

Even in a fully grade-separated setting, when you have a ramp that is of such low design speed such that the necessary following distance between vehicles exceeds the amount of distance that can be traversed at the design speed of the affected ramp, such as on the tight, 20km/h hairpin ramp from outbound Bedford Highway to southbound Joseph Howe Drive, it takes a lot less traffic to cause back ups than it would on a 40km/h or a 50km/h ramp. I have seen the Joe Howe ramp itself back up a lane of traffic to the point of both backing up the Windsor Street Exchange (which already has its own backups) and tying up the westbound lanes of the MacKay Bridge. Joseph Howe Drive is a very busy access to Fairview/Clayton Park (hence the need for the Lacewood Connector) and also a busy switch-over between Highway 111 and 102 (hence the need for the viaduct freeway link between the 111 and the 102).

The MacDonald Bridge is like a mile long, 50km/h freeway that receives its traffic from and dumps its traffic directly onto roads that are, at most, Arterial class roads that cannot handle more than 600 vehicles per hour in each lane, due to impediments along these affected roads that hold up traffic from dumping off of the bridge such as traffic signals, intersections, driveways, RA-4/5 crosswalks, etc.

Regards,

Richard Kannegiesser
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  #126  
Old Posted Jan 29, 2019, 8:41 PM
Ottawaresident Ottawaresident is offline
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Upgrading the route from the Halifax end of the Mackay Bridge to the 102 could help.
(In case you were wondering about my username, I have been to Halifax before)
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  #127  
Old Posted Jan 29, 2019, 9:28 PM
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Keith P. Keith P. is offline
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Originally Posted by Ottawaresident View Post
Upgrading the route from the Halifax end of the Mackay Bridge to the 102 could help.
(In case you were wondering about my username, I have been to Halifax before)
Ah yes, the dreaded Windsor St Exchange and the tenuous-at-best connection to the 102.

Back 20+ years ago the late Eric Kierans, a former Trudeau cabinet minister and in later life a Dal professor and regular contributor to CBC Radio, came up with a brilliant solution to that connection to the 102. From what he foresaw as the Windsor St Interchange, a short section of elevated roadway would fly over the cemetary and then land behind the commercial properties there. It would proceed through a portion of the Bayers Rd Shopping Center property near the railcut and then connect to the 102. It was a brilliant plan with minimal effect on housing.

Of course, being Halifax, absolutely nothing was done.
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  #128  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2019, 2:03 PM
IanWatson IanWatson is offline
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There's a detailed plan for upgrading the Windsor Street Exchange. I wonder if it'll get done when they replace/rehabilitate the Mackay.
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  #129  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2019, 7:06 PM
Ottawaresident Ottawaresident is offline
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Hopefully. Near the end of the 102 was a pain
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