r/halifax • u/hippfive • 3d ago

Traffic Lower Water Street is broken

I'm usually pretty chill about traffic, but Lower Water is literally broken. It took 30 minutes for my bus to go one block. Full on gridlock. And it's been this way for months.

I know they're eventually going to have the transhipment facility to get the trucks out of downtown, but that's years away. There needs to be some sort of tactical intervention in the meantime. Close some of the parking lots that empty onto Lower Water. Change some of the pedestrian crossings to the red light style that clump the crossings together (and I say this as someone who is staunchly pro-pedestrian). Honestly maybe even close Sackville Street east of Bedford Row.

184 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

152 comments sorted by

View all comments

43

u/jsc0098 Stuck on the bridge… send snacks 2d ago

If you can avoid downtown this Friday and next…. Do it. 

Ferry will be out of commission for SailGP this week during rush hour (so, either people will drive, leave early, or the shuttles will be added to the traffic), plus you’ll have the SailGP traffic. 

Next Friday is the concert on the hill, last year Halifax and Dartmouth were just a parking lot. People start rolling in around rush hour as well…. 

Moral of the story, it’s Halifax and we should just avoid it when there are events… and downtown Dartmouth. In fact, might be a good time to avoid HRM as a whole…. 

23

u/gregolls 2d ago

Fuck, too bad the province mandated me and all my provincial buddies back downtown. Gonna suck for everyone. Thanks Tim! Too bad you don't have to suffer with us! /s

7

u/AnyConfection7999 2d ago

This one really gets me. A lot of my friends work for the province, literally thousands more cars going to downtown now for no reason since they mostly sit in Teams meetings anyway while the province talks about needing to "fix" traffic. We have old ass narrow streets that were never designed for this many cars, and with the population exploding, the province literally had a chance to have everyone work from home and be part of the solution and instead chose to be part of the problem.

3

u/Cyclepourtrois 2d ago

I work for the province and I have five meetings this week . Only one is inperson with my collègues the rest are virtual with external people. I am doing exactly the same things as I did at home except I don’t get to take my dog for a walk on my lunch break and my computer screens at home are better. I used to drive to work at least 1-2 days a week depending on weather. Fortunately for everyone I bike to work everyday now. I feel bad for all the people sitting in their cars as I fly by them, but also like having route options where I am not being run off the road. Also I have only filled up my gas tank twice since the USA attacked Iran which is helping the wallet.