Category: Roads

The Halifax Department of Silly Walks

As part of our trip through the Maritime Provinces a few weeks ago, we visited Halifax. Nova Scotia’s capital and largest city is the economic, cultural and transportation hub for Atlantic Canada. In 1996, the City of Halifax was merged with surrounding towns and suburbs, as well as rural Halifax County; the Halifax Regional Municipality is now 5,490 square kilometres, nearly nine times the size of the City of Toronto.

Like many amalgamated cities in Canada, Halifax has a historic, densely populated inner core, surrounded by urban neighbourhoods. Beyond the old cities of Halifax and Dartmouth is a ring of suburban homes and businesses, such as Bedford, Cole Harbour, and Bayer’s Lake. And like Hamilton and Ottawa, there’s another, even larger ring of rural farms, woodlands, small villages, and exurban estates. Peggy’s Cove, for example, is near Halifax’s eastern boundary. Councils of these amalgamated cities must reconcile the needs and desires of the urban centre with those of suburban and exurban residents. In Toronto, bike lanes are held up, or even removed, for the benefit of motorists living outside the urban core. The debate over Hamilton’s LRT has pitted suburban councillors against those representing the lower city. Halifax is no exception.

Halifax’s urban core is worth exploring, despite construction detours around the new convention centre, the waterfront, and new condominium development. Downtown includes the historic Citadel, Province House, and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, among other museums. Halifax Common and the Public Gardens are welcoming public spaces in the classic New England style.

Halifax Transit operates a ferry service to Dartmouth — only $2.50 per person, with the return trip free if taken within 90 minutes — which offers great views of the city and the various commercial and naval ships in the harbour. The ferry is also fully integrated with the local bus system. The new Halifax Central Library is one of Canada’s greatest new public buildings: the five storeys are bright and user-friendly, and there is even a rooftop patio and café to visit.

Downtown is compact and a pleasure to walk abound.

The spectacular new Halifax Central Library

But once you stroll beyond Halifax’s urban core, the landscape changes. Signed crosswalks are fewer and farther between, even in older residential neighbourhoods.

Maritimers are famously courteous to pedestrians; most motorists will slow or stop if they see a pedestrian about to cross the street, whether or not there’s a marked crosswalk. But that slower pace of life in itself does not prevent collisions. As in any North American city, Halifax’s arterial roads and suburban streets are built to move cars through quickly and efficiently.

That’s where the flags come in. What was intended as a well-meaning, inexpensive measure to promote pedestrians’ safety at crosswalks has become one of the most ridiculous pedestrian initiatives.

Crosswalk flags were the idea of just one man, Norm Collins, a Dartmouth retiree. The flags and buckets only cost $200 per crosswalk, compared to $15,000-25,000 per crosswalk for proper signal lights. In 2015, municipal staff were cool to pedestrian flags, though the idea enjoyed support from HRM councillors, particularly suburban politicians, and the flags were approved by council.

Now, at most crosswalks outside Halifax’s urban core, there are buckets of bright orange flags for pedestrians to take when crossing the street. These buckets and flags can even be found at signalized crossings with flashing amber lights activated by pressing a button. Each bucket has instructions printed on how to “be cautious…be seen…be safe.”

One of the buckets, with instructions on how to use the flags left inside

Yes, even when there are flashing lights at an intersection, Halifax Regional Council expects pedestrians to use these flags (even if city staff disagree). The instructions above clearly indicate that the onus for safety is entirely on the pedestrian crossing the street, not on motorists taking care by driving safely and attentively.

Vision Zero is the Swedish road safety philosophy that seeks to end traffic fatalities by minimizing the effects of mistakes made my all road users. Lower speed limits, enforced by road re-engineering works (such as bump-outs, speed humps, and tighter corners at intersections) that slow down cars and trucks is one such effective measure. So are complete streets, designed to improve the safety and comfort of pedestrians and cyclists. Cheap pedestrian flags, which do not address the root problem, are not within the spirit of Vision Zero.

If Halifax Council — or any municipal government — was serious about improving pedestrian safety, features that would help include improved lighting, narrowing the roadways at pedestrian crossings, and raising the crosswalks closer to the curb level, forcing motorists to slow down (and also improving drainage. Flags and high-visibility clothing are useful for temporary conditions and for traffic control personnel, but not for everyday conditions and everyday people. The onus should always be first on the licensed motorist to be attentive to the road and drive according to the conditions.

A ridiculous pedestrian safety measure deserves a ridiculous walk, as I demonstrated in Dartmouth.

July 26, 2017
A better Hurontario Street – an LRT update

Metrolinx light rail vehicle mock-up at Gage Park, meets a Brampton Transit Zum bus, 2013.

Earlier this week, I visited Brampton City Hall, where at a public open house, Metrolinx and city staff provided an update of the Hurontario Light Rail Transit project. Brampton City Hall was an ironic location for the open house; before Brampton Council voted against building the LRT up to Downtown Brampton and the GO/VIA Station, the LRT line would have stopped right here. Even with Brampton’s decision, there will be three stops in the city, so an open house for local residents to provide their feedback was still needed.

The Hurontario LRT project, map via Metrolinx

The open house was quite interesting as more design details were displayed. There`s a focus on promoting active transportation — walking and cycling — and urbanizing much of the corridor. Three lanes of motor traffic will go down to two in most places, and right turning traffic will be tamed. This will make Hurontario Street a safer and more pleasant place to be.

Along the entire LRT corridor, Hurontario Street will feature separated bike infrastructure — for the most part, there will be separated bike lanes, with multi-use paths in a few areas, especially south of the Queensway, where Hurontario Street is narrower. Sidewalks are also wider. With only a few exceptions, cyclists will be able to ride across intersections without being required to dismount. Those exceptions are at the Queen Elizabeth Way, and at Highways 403 and 407, where Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) standards at interchanges will force the “stop, dismount, wait for gap” regime; pedestrians will also still have to yield to motor traffic.

Typical cross-section once the LRT is built. The orange paths are the separated bike lanes, the green paths are sidewalks. Hurontario Street will only have two traffic lanes in each direction.

At expressways, like at Highway 407, pedestrians and cyclists still must yield to motor traffic at on-ramps.

In another benefit for pedestrians and cyclists, channelized right turns are eliminated along the entire route. Channelized right turns (like the one shown below) are convenient for motorists, but they increase conflicts with foot traffic and are incompatible with lower speeds and safe cycling infrastructure. Their removal also creates new room for streetscaping opportunities.

An example of a channelized right turn

The northern terminus of the LRT, at least for now, will be at Steeles Avenue. As Brampton debates other LRT alignments (Kennedy Road and McLauglin Road are indirect alternatives to reach Downtown Brampton), the stop was moved to the south side of the intersection. This is unfortunate: the Brampton Gateway bus terminal, which opened in 2012, was designed to easily connect with the planned LRT stop on the north side of the intersection, with two short crosswalks across southbound Main Street.

Planned LRT terminus at Steeles Avenue, including tunnel between the LRT platform and the Brampton Gateway Terminal.

Instead, a more expensive tunnel is required to accommodate transferring passengers between the LRT and buses. Elevators and escalators will provide direct access to the tunnel; crosswalks at Steeles Avenue and Lancashire Lane will also be accessible from the platform.

The final contract is planned to be signed in mid-2018 and construction should begin in Fall 2018. As the City of Mississauga backs the LRT project, hopefully any change in the provincial government will not jeopardize this plan. Not only will Mississauga (and south Brampton) get a fine new transit service, it will also see a tamer, more urbanized main street.

And maybe Brampton City Council will come to its senses and extend the transit corridor via the direct, least-expensive, Main Street alignment.

March 3, 2017
Rethinking Downtown Brampton’s streetscape

Main Street looking north at Queen Street, Downtown Brampton

On Thursday, February 23, I went back to my hometown to check out plans for re-configuring Main and Queen Streets in Downtown Brampton. As the Region of Peel needs to replace water and wastewater infrastructure in the area, the timing is right for re-imagining what the streetscape should look like.

The same conversations are taking place in Downtown Toronto. There there are proposals for transforming King Street to prioritize transit and pedestrians; on Yonge Street, city planners, Ryerson University, and local businesses are looking to provide more space for pedestrians and cyclists, as well as street furniture (such as benches and trees), patios, and special events. Of course, re-imagining downtown streets where cars are given priority will generate opposition, but it’s necessary in dense, urban cities were people, and not necessarily their cars, are given priority.

Downtown Brampton has great bones; it has numerous heritage buildings, several great public spaces, and GO Transit and VIA Rail trains stop right here. The Saturday Farmers’ Market is popular, as is ice skating at Gage Park. But despite some interesting new restaurants and bars, most retail has struggled here, and even new residential development in the area is sluggish. Improving the public realm, especially wider sidewalks and more attractive streetscaping, would be a relatively inexpensive, yet symbolically important, step to making downtown a more desirable place to be.

Sidewalks are narrow, and cyclists often take the sidewalks in Downtown Brampton.

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February 25, 2017
From the vaults: the end of Yonge Street

Note: This article was previously published in Spacing Toronto on April 13, 2011.

One of Toronto’s greatest debates concerns Yonge Street’s controversial claim as “the World’s Longest Street.” Indeed, the Guinness Book of World Records published Yonge Street’s status as the true record until 1999; a bronze art installation in front of the Eaton Centre at Yonge and Dundas has a map of Yonge Street extending to Rainy River.

This claim rests on the rather tenuous claim that that the 1,896 kilometre length of Yonge Street from Queen’s Quay on Toronto’s Harbourfront to Rainy River via Highway 11, at the Minnesota-Ontario border is in fact, the longest continuous “street.”

While a popular claim, I’ve been a skeptic of this local legend. Highway 11 and Yonge Street have never been one and the the same, especially after the downloading of Highway 11 south of Barrie by the Harris government in the late 1990s.

In 1920, Yonge Street was added to the Ontario provincial highway systemas Highway 11, which extended from Downtown Toronto as far as the end of Simcoe County, at the Severn River north of Orillia, where an unnumbered highway continued through the unincorporated Districts of Muskoka, Parry Sound and Nipissing to North Bay. In 1937, Highway 11 assumed the Severn River-North Bay portion and the newly-completed North Bay-Hearst section.

During the Second World War, the section between Nipigon and Hearst was completed; it finally provided a complete provincial highway link between the Manitoba and Quebec borders and formed a crucial part of the Trans-Canada Highway until the more direct Highway 17 link from Sault Ste. Marie to Wawa was completed in the 1960s. Indeed, Highway 11 could still claim as the longest signed route within a sub-national entity but several national routes, such as US Interstates and US highways, are longer. In fact, the last reference to Yonge Street on Highway 11 north of Holland Landing is a short section of former Highway 11 in south Barrie.

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December 2, 2016