Third Harbour Crossing

[Jonovision]

Nice article. I really like Christopher Hume. He always brings some good points to light and there aren't many Canadian urban planning journalists so it is always refreshing to read his articles or see his videos.

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by Jonovision

Nice article. I really like Christopher Hume. He always brings some good points to light and there aren't many Canadian urban planning journalists so it is always refreshing to read his articles or see his videos.

If I'm not mistaken; he came out and spoke at the Plan It Calgary summit. When the new regional plan is done; he would be a great speaker for some sort of speaking series.

[beyeas]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

This article was in thestar.com (the online version of the Toronto Star). I have a couple points - 1) most visitors to Halifax generally find it to be an interesting city, even visitors from the big city of Toronto (don't be offended, I still consider myself to be a Haligonian living in the Toronto area) - so Halifax needs to move ahead with the new convention centre, which will probably be a resounding success and help revitalize the downtown, 2) Halifax really needs a North West Arm crossing to get these big trucks off the downtown streets. That is why I like the route that I re-posted after the article (this doesn't go through the rail-cut but instead above it on the southern side)

(source - http://www.thestar.com/article/83954...-to-the-future )

I very much enjoyed the article, but I had a very different take on it than you. In fact my read of his work is that he would be very much against a new 6 lane connection to the peninsula. While he does say that we need to get the trucks out of the downtown streets (which I totally agree with and would support funding of structure to make that happen, whether it be that sort of route along the rail cut or something else) he in fact says that he thinks we need to REDUCE by 25% the number of cars coming onto the peninsula. Building a 6-lane link would be counter-productive in that regard. Building something (even if it is a tunnel link for truck and transit under the Arm is something I could support (and I think possible so would he), but I definitely don't see his article as being in support of a 6-lane link for cars.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by beyeas

I very much enjoyed the article, but I had a very different take on it than you. In fact my read of his work is that he would be very much against a new 6 lane connection to the peninsula. While he does say that we need to get the trucks out of the downtown streets (which I totally agree with and would support funding of structure to make that happen, whether it be that sort of route along the rail cut or something else) he in fact says that he thinks we need to REDUCE by 25% the number of cars coming onto the peninsula. Building a 6-lane link would be counter-productive in that regard. Building something (even if it is a tunnel link for truck and transit under the Arm is something I could support (and I think possible so would he), but I definitely don't see his article as being in support of a 6-lane link for cars.

I was thinking that rerouting the trucks alone would reduce vehicular traffic by at least 25% through the downtown which solves the problem of Halifax having 19th century street infrastructure. But if such a crossing is going to be built it would also make sense to have vehicular traffic also since it would open the Halifax south mainland for future growth. In addition, when that area has grown enough it would be a good transit route. (I liked his article but that doesn't mean that we must accept it as gospel).

[beyeas]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

In addition, when that area has grown enough it would be a good transit route. (I liked his article but that doesn't mean that we must accept it as gospel).

Oh I agree... I just meant that I wouldn't necessarily take his article as support for your argument. Your point is well taken that removing the trucks will go partway to reducing downtown congestion on already clogged streets, however any gain in that would likely be more than offset by the increase in car traffic. What you propose is certainly an option, and for all I know it may be the right option, but it isn't an option that will reduce congestion on its own.

[halifaxboyns]

His article may also support the eventual relocation of Halterm off the Peninsula to another location closer to major roads, but still maintaining rail access.

Somewhere on the Dartmouth side; since the harbour depth would be the same (according to the map fenwick posted some time ago).

I think that may be a logical step too.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by halifaxboyns

But the only way to actually improve downtown 'activity' (making it a busy place to be) is to look at things in a contextual approach. It's not just about building more apartment buildings and thinking 'build it they will come', there has to be stuff to do there.

The residential, retail, and everything else are self-reinforcing. I think there's enough going on downtown that simply adding more population does actually improve things a lot.

An area like Barrington is really just missing local population. It has lots of events, most of which don't seem to make much difference because the day-to-day traffic is not there.

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by someone123

The residential, retail, and everything else are self-reinforcing. I think there's enough going on downtown that simply adding more population does actually improve things a lot.

An area like Barrington is really just missing local population. It has lots of events, most of which don't seem to make much difference because the day-to-day traffic is not there.

Certainly more condominium projects along the waterfront like Bishop's landing and the Brewery tower will help. Also the Hollis apartment building should add good numbers. I'm torn on the Discovery Centre proposal; I'm thinking it should probably go office mainly. But it would also be a good site to go residential - right in the heart of downtown.

This is the problem for Calgary's downtown as well (at least late at night and on the weekends). There isn't enough population in downtown to really support many of the places being open; with some exceptions. According to the City's recent census, the population of the downtown core (excluding the Beltline) is 13,901. Now many places in China town and Eau Clare are busy because of dedicated localized population; but the real busy parts of downtown are the Mission and 17th avenue areas - which are in the Beltine to the south of downtown. That population is 18,902 and because of all the trendy bars and restaurants it is always buzzing.

I'm not sure what the population is for the downtown of HRM; but I would say that it needs to be big for the core to get any real life into it (including Dartmouth). But you can also do like Calgary and build more residential adjacent to the core (Agricola, Quinpool) and that should help too.

More residential in the core, adjacent to the core and with projects like King's Wharf, Trillium, The Brewery and Hollis Street are great starts...keep the momentum going!

[Jstaleness]

• Video Link
Shot this today at about 3:30pm. Just added for fun.

[josh_cat_eyes]

What if Fairview Cove and Halterm were BOTH relocated to the east side of the DND just off windmill road. Then where Halport is, you could build the Stadium AND the metro centre replacement. You could replace the MacKay bridge with a tunnel (this would REALLY help in the redevelopment of Shannon park and Fairview Cove) The tunnel would have 3 tunnels. 1 with 6 lanes of northbound traffic. 1 with 6 lanes of eastbound traffic. and a 3rd for transit, pedestrians and bikes; 1 northbound transit lane and 1 southbound and 2 rail lines. 1 would continue to the train station downtown, the other would become part of the transit system. Not only this, but if those lines were put underground and a highway was built on it, that is a really easy way to get traffic out of downtown. The halifax shopping centre is right on this route, leave the potential for a subway transit stop. Basically you could have a car route, truck route or a transit route right on top of the trains on the same right of way. You could connect this south into the park with a NWA crossing connecting to NWA drive. You could also then replace the MacDonald bridge with a 4 lane southern tunnel. That way there is no direct traffic going into the downtown but easy ways to get there. Rather than having 2 bridges with 5 lanes, you have 2 tunnels, with 10 lanes of car traffic at both ends of hwy 111 PLUS 2 lanes of bus/transit traffic AND 2 rail lines. There would be nothing blocking viewlines and nothing blocking the ships. You have a 30,000 seat Stadium AND 18,000 seat Arena together DOWNTOWN, right next to MAJOR traffic arteries. I don't think ANY major city can say they have that. It's a win, win, win, win, win situation. A win for Peninsula, South of NWA, South of Dartmouth, the City, and the Province.

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by josh_cat_eyes

What if Fairview Cove and Halterm were BOTH relocated to the east side of the DND just off windmill road. Then where Halport is, you could build the Stadium AND the metro centre replacement. You could replace the MacKay bridge with a tunnel (this would REALLY help in the redevelopment of Shannon park and Fairview Cove) The tunnel would have 3 tunnels. 1 with 6 lanes of northbound traffic. 1 with 6 lanes of eastbound traffic. and a 3rd for transit, pedestrians and bikes; 1 northbound transit lane and 1 southbound and 2 rail lines. 1 would continue to the train station downtown, the other would become part of the transit system. Not only this, but if those lines were put underground and a highway was built on it, that is a really easy way to get traffic out of downtown. The halifax shopping centre is right on this route, leave the potential for a subway transit stop. Basically you could have a car route, truck route or a transit route right on top of the trains on the same right of way. You could connect this south into the park with a NWA crossing connecting to NWA drive. You could also then replace the MacDonald bridge with a 4 lane southern tunnel. That way there is no direct traffic going into the downtown but easy ways to get there. Rather than having 2 bridges with 5 lanes, you have 2 tunnels, with 10 lanes of car traffic at both ends of hwy 111 PLUS 2 lanes of bus/transit traffic AND 2 rail lines. There would be nothing blocking viewlines and nothing blocking the ships. You have a 30,000 seat Stadium AND 18,000 seat Arena together DOWNTOWN, right next to MAJOR traffic arteries. I don't think ANY major city can say they have that. It's a win, win, win, win, win situation. A win for Peninsula, South of NWA, South of Dartmouth, the City, and the Province.

Very interesting idea - but more tunnels = more $. Although (from my understanding) the cost to tunnel through rock like slate has come down because technology has improved, the fact is it's still not cheap.

But if HRM is going to get serious about building a good transportation system; it has to be prepared to shell out $. There hasn't been a good investment in the system and so the cumulative cost to make it better will be huge.

What worries me about any tunnels or increasing of capacity for cross town traffic is two things. Firstly (which has been stated before) if you increase capacity from Dartmouth it could create the effect of encouraging more people to live there. If you typically build more road capacity, people will use it - so it could lead to more sprawl. I think this could occur, but if things are well thoughtout before construction - you could impliment policy to make any new communities much higher density and more transit friendly.

The second concern is the inclusion of transit options into construction. There report that council saw for the 3rd link (which I believe I posted earlier on in this thread) was mainly based on cars/trucks. There was no option for rail or a transit only corridor. While this may kick up the cost, in the long run it would make things very helpful. Let's face it - the train station would be a great terminus for a variety of transit options and is drastically under used.

But where I agree with you partially is on moving Halterm. I don't think ceries really needs to move - it's fine, especially along a major rail corridor. What would have to happen to move Halterm is the rail line through DT dartmouth would have to be upgraded though - so that more trains could use it. That would mean more sidings and I'm not sure where that could happen...but I'm sure someone would sell their land at the right price.

But I don't know if putting the MC2 or the stadium on that location would work though. When I was home, I went to the farmers market and finding parking was a challenge when I went on a Saturday. I can only imagine the hell you'd have for a game - imagine if both had events, better yet all three? The parking might be okay if you had say a streetcar or subway, but I'd much rather see the Halterm site as a mixed use village concept.

I'd like to suggest that when considering locating the MC2 - we thinking about the regional core concept which is everything in the circ (Dartmouth side) and Peninsula Halifax. Could we not located MC2 on the Dartmouth side at the rail yards and create a cross town event idea?

[someone123]

Container terminals are not cheap.

I hope they are actively working on the third crossing. This really was one of the more depressing stories in Halifax since it's obvious that the city will need another crossing (last one build in 1970 when the city had maybe 250,000 inhabitants) yet the discussion is dominated by ridiculous talk of how soon there will be no cars etc. etc.

The line about it never being worthwhile to add more road capacity because it induces an increase in demand that causes equal congestion is loony -- reminds me a bit of Laffer curves. It's actually slightly worse because people are also ignoring the fact that additional capacity with equal congestion still means that more people are able to travel.

I hope they go with the bridge option because it is far more cost-effective and could look nice. The tunnel is more expensive with less capacity. The tunnel also would not have room for transit-dedicated and/or HOV lanes.

Halifax also obviously needs a Northwest Arm crossing.

[alps]

I don't think it's "loony" to suggest that additional road infrastructure would encourage people to drive. My parents moved from Dartmouth to Halifax because they were sick of the bridge traffic and they started walking to work instead (this was before the third lane project). I think a third bridge and a Northwest Arm crossing would certainly encourage urban sprawl and, in turn, more people bringing their cars downtown on streets that are already backed up. Suburban commute times are really the main incentive currently for many people to seek housing on the peninsula.

[someone123]

I don't think it's "loony" to suggest that additional road infrastructure would encourage people to drive.

You are making a slightly weaker claim than the one that I think is obviously wrong. Many people make an argument something like:

1) Better roads encourage driving.
2) More driving means more congestion, therefore
3) Building roads means more congestion (or congestion as bad as before).

I think this is a confused line of reasoning.

My parents moved from Dartmouth to Halifax because they were sick of the bridge traffic and they started walking to work instead (this was before the third lane project). I think a third bridge and a Northwest Arm crossing would certainly encourage urban sprawl and, in turn, more people bringing their cars downtown on streets that are already backed up.

Well, this may be true for your parents but it is one small part of the overall picture. The bigger effect is that people and businesses avoid the peninsula due to congestion. People instead choose to live in Dartmouth and work in places like Burnside. This trend has been dramatically larger than any return to the peninsula encouraged by worsening traffic -- far more development has happened in suburbs.

Note that another potential effect that's more difficult to measure is business lost to the entire region. I suspect this is huge -- property in a good location is unaffordable in Halifax given incomes so the city loses business and population to other regions.

Unfortunately I think this is lost on most people. The attitude seems to mostly be that everything's fine in Halifax, or at least this is true for people who have managed to obtain the relatively few cushy government jobs and well-located properties. Most of the rest of us have moved away.

[fenwick16]

The question that I have is "why must there be growth on both sides of the harbour?" If you look at this map of Quebec City - Google Map you can see that the Quebec City area has continued to grow without numerous St. Lawrence River crossings. It doesn't need to expand into Levis, so why must the HRM encourage growth on the Dartmouth side. There seems to be plenty of room for growth on the Halifax Mainland - Google Map. With the cost of another harbour crossing being estimated at over $1 billion dollars, I think this is a legitimate question.

[alps]

Originally Posted by someone123

Well, this may be true for your parents but it is one small part of the overall picture. The bigger effect is that people and businesses avoid the peninsula due to congestion. People instead choose to live in Dartmouth and work in places like Burnside. This trend has been dramatically larger than any return to the peninsula encouraged by worsening traffic -- far more development has happened in suburbs.

Definitely a good point. But I can't help but think of all those hollowed-out mid-sized American cities with cores that are easy to get to -- typically all the regional highways converge in a "downtown circulator" -- but these places still do not have strong urban centres. I would like to see something like greenbelt legislation put in place to encourage developers to work closer to the core...and perhaps a third bridge might be OK in that scenario, but I think it'd be irresponsible otherwise.

[Waye Mason]

Just building the bridge was quoted at $1.6 billion by the Chair of Halifax Bridges a couple years ago. Moving the terminal too? Wow.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

The question that I have is "why must there be growth on both sides of the harbour?"

It is a legitimate question but it is partly addressed in the report released by the Bridge Commission. Some factors (some are in the report, some are not):

-The bridge saves significant travel time even for current residents; it's been planned for ages.
-No capacity in the southern area due to lack of roads. Would require an Arm crossing.
-Much of the wilderness to the west is protected. I believe council also shot down a subdivision in the Timberlea area.

Basically the next-closest area for future development seems to be Bedford West, which is *much* farther from the downtown than the third crossing area (~10 km extra).

The $1.1B would be paid at least in large part by tolls, not by the taxpayer. It's incorrect to view funding for projects like the bridge as "zero sum", where $1 for the bridge means $1 less for a stadium or whatever else (this isn't even true for CC vs stadium because of spinoffs and federal funding).

A while back I did a calculation showing the value of saving travel time. Here's a rough approximation:

Bridges get 30 million crossings per year right now. Let's suppose the new bridge gets 10 million crossings per year (probably conservative).

Let's suppose each crossing saves on average 6 minutes of driving time (again, conservative).

10 * 6 = 60 million minutes saved per year = 1 million hours saved per year.

Let's assume an average worker makes $20/hour, and has to pay $5/hour to run their car. This means $25M saved per year. It would take 44 years for the bridge to pay for itself -- the Macdonald is already more than 44 years old.

Note that we are not including benefits in terms of reduced emissions etc. We are also not including maintenance costs.

A billion dollars sounds large while 6 minutes sounds like nothing... but in a city with hundreds of thousands of people those tradeoffs start to make sense!

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by someone123

It is a legitimate question but it is partly addressed in the report released by the Bridge Commission. Some factors (some are in the report, some are not):

-The bridge saves significant travel time even for current residents; it's been planned for ages.
-No capacity in the southern area due to lack of roads. Would require an Arm crossing.
-Much of the wilderness to the west is protected. I believe council also shot down a subdivision in the Timberlea area.

Wouldn't an Arm crossing save even more money in saved travel time? It would also get container truck traffic off city streets if routed correctly.

...The $1.1B would be paid at least in large part by tolls, not by the taxpayer. It's incorrect to view funding for projects like the bridge as "zero sum", where $1 for the bridge means $1 less for a stadium or whatever else (this isn't even true for CC vs stadium because of spinoffs and federal funding).

At 10 million crossings per year then what would the tolls have to be? - I think that it would be close to $10 per crossing since maintenance and interest payments must be factored in. I am basing that on 5% interest fixed rate for 25 years and on the low estimate of $1.1 billion - here is a mortgage calculator. The principal and interest payments would be about $76.7 million per year and I think that annual maintenance costs would account for the remainder of the $10 per crossing estimate.

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (a similar size) has a toll of $6, but in one direction only (which would be about $3 each way if factored that way, but it has 118,000 crossings per day or about 43 million per year) - reference

What would the impact be on accommodating large container ships? This was an issue mentioned in the report and thus a more expensive tunnel was also suggested.

I think a southern bridge crossing would have to be heavily subsidized by taxpayers to make the tolls reasonable. If a third harbour crossing is required then I think it would have to be a twinning of the MacKay Bridge which would be a much cheaper option.

Also, I don't think that people would want all the numerous ramps leading into the southern Halifax area (there would be major opposition - the opposition would likely be stronger than it would be for building a stadium on the Halifax Commons, in my opinion. Therefore, I know that I shouldn't even suggest it).

There would also be major opposition to building a North West Arm crossing which should have been built decades ago. It is frustrating that such an important piece of infrastructure can't be built.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Wouldn't an Arm crossing save even more money in saved travel time? It would also get container truck traffic off city streets if routed correctly.

I agree.

A good plan might be a shared route for vehicles in the rail cut that could connect to a tunnel or a combined tunnel/bridge. This then link up to Northwest Arm Drive somehow (unfortunately this doesn't seem to have been planned for properly, however).