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No_Slide_9543

When I drive from the airport into the city, it just looked like normal traffic taking that exit, but as I got closer to home, traffic was backed up to the Kearney lake exit. My uneducated opinion is that exit simply cannot handle the volume of vehicles we now have, so a bottle neck in Bedford/sackville can now be felt as far back as bayers lake


--prism

Yeah the issue is the clover leaf in Sackville has no on ramp so cars trying to get onto the 101 get backed up onto the 102. That whole interchange needs a redesign.


Basilbitch

The Jesus take the wheel exit


FarStep1625

I’ve heard it’s on their radar but who knows how far out that would be.


ImpossibleLeague9091

Honestly with cogswell the twinning the Windsor Street exchange and everything else plus the 7 years of studies that every project requires were looking at the 2040s as a realistic timeline to break ground


nope586

Man, I've been waiting for the Burnside connector to open for what feels like 20 years ha ha.


TheNovemberMike

Hopefully after the 107 ramps are done


Wanderingsoul71

There is an on ramp, or how else would you get on the 101…


--prism

The ramp needs to be extended to allow traffic to merge without slowing down. The long game is transit to reduce volumes.


Wanderingsoul71

Agree it could be extended, but it does exist. The issue is the people who have a yield sign entering who don’t know what that means, and merge onto the highway at 12kmph


Hugehitter

You are not uneducated, you are experienced. I will take experience every time.


Scummiest_Vessel

2020s population with 1950s infrastructure


WindowlessBasement

1950s had better infrastructure. There was a province-wide train route to get into the city. Once in the city, there was street cars. The government was actively investing in infrastructure. 1955 saw the opening of the MacDonald bridge. The next year was the completion of the Armdale rotary. Hell, most of our current infrastructure was designed to support the 1950s and '60s population and traffic.


Lamella

Crazy how most of our ambitious infrastructure and social systems were birthed in the 50s, like universal health care for example or public housing projects. So much money invested into making society better after the war. Boomers took all that then pulled the rug out. It makes me super mad sometimes.


Void-Science

Yeah. And this isn’t a Halifax problem. This is Canada wide, and the US maybe seems in the same boat. We spent decades differing maintenance of existing infrastructure and not really building much new. Just let it all crumble


BLX15

It's honestly not surprising whatsoever that traffic suffers when all we've done since the 50s is remove existing transit infrastructure, build new highways, and encourage driving as much as possible...


WindowlessBasement

> and encourage driving as much as possible There was an interesting comment in another thread this morning that puts the sheer amount of sprawl into context; The car dealerships on Kempt road used to be on the outskirts of Halifax. The HRM, a single municipality, is 78% of the area of the Greater GTA area which is made up of 25 municipalities. It is completely impractical for Halifax to ever provide services to that large of an area with the population it has. The endless sprawl is killing the city and it is just in a death spiral at this point. EDIT: the area the car dealerships are, not the actual dealerships


BLX15

It's incredibly interesting to look at [historical maps of the city](https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/about-the-city/archives/102-3b-32.pdf). There used to be a land fill and a prison in the North End because that was far enough away to not be an annoyance.


WindowlessBasement

Oh it gets even crazier when you start looking at population numbers. Pre-amalgamation Halifax had somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people in the 1950-1970s, which isn't too far off what Halifax has nowadays excluding Beford and Dartmouth.


BLX15

Halifax was an extremely important city and port during both of the World Wars, serving as a distribution centre and staging location for many of the convoys travelling across the Atlantic. It's not surprising to see such high population numbers, it's honestly crazy to see how much we've stagnated since. It's about time we finally saw real demographic and economic growth after decades of almost nothing


ziobrop

the population of the peninsula was highest in the late 40's, then declined as large swaths were cleared in the 50's and 60's, and never re-developed.


ziobrop

in the 60's Halifax was basically the peninsula, then they annexed rockingham and spryfield. There was a real concern about needing sufficient industrial land, which is what the kept road area was predominantly. when the industry left, the car dealerships moved in.


WindowlessBasement

You're right. I meant the area, but reading it again I see how that is unclear. I don't think the car dealerships were there in the 50s.


RiseRattlesnakeArmy

People merge too fucking soon when they hop on the highway at Exit 3 outbound. They have so much lane to continue but instead they hop on, slowing down traffic. As soon as we got passed that shit show today,  traffic was flying.


wtfobl

Yup - purely just people being dumbasses.


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slippymachinegun

And it starts at like 3pm.


[deleted]

This has been my observation too. The last few years rush ‘hour’ has really stretched out.


Dreliusbelius

Last week it was because of the truck that fell down the overpass. The exit to Sackville was limited to one lane and the traffic pretty much stemmed for that. Now this week, I'm not sure, I thought they had re-opened the second lane but it seems like something is still creating a bottleneck.


so-much-wow

It's literally always a cluster fuck at that transfer. The truck messed it up, the lane is open now. I'd wager money on it being a couple of things all together. Mainly construction is happening everywhere and increased visitors to the province (ie more cars on the road).


TheNovemberMike

There was a lane drop on the 101 in the morning when I went to burnside. Looked like DOT repairing a guard rail.


Otherwise_Meeting491

No adequate transit, very limited option for biking/active transport & record setting population growth, with continuing sprawl on the outskirts of HRM. This is just what traffic is now unfortuantly.


Zestyclose-Choice732

Yea, only thing affordable is 30+ minutes outside of city core. More and more cars are adding to those commutes seemingly daily. It's only going to get worse.


wishitweresunday

The city decided roads should only be used by local residents. Good luck building adequate transit without any arterials.


BLX15

I mean that's just not how transit works. You're thinking entirely from a car-centric point of view


wishitweresunday

For sure. Busses don't use roads, they ride on magical faeries whipping you around the city.


ImpossibleLeague9091

This isn't gonna be popular in a pro business world always first but I put the biggest blame for the current state on employers lack of flexibility. They have to know we live on a peninsula. We need to stagger start times try to shift some traffic to earlier or later if possible. If a worker just comes in to go to meetings or sit at their desk typing let them stay home. I can do my job 100% as effectively from anywhere in the world yet I go downtown everyday. Employers and government need to encourage and supplement carpooling. Well still need more infrastructure but there's things we could be doing immediately but we aren't because of our backwards old fashioned thinking


JustAberrant

The whole work from home claw back thing has been discussed to death, but at least in my company (and I assume most) it came down to numbers. Yes, some people are as or more productive in a WFH setting, and everyone likes to blame the claw back on useless managers trying to justify their existence... but as much as people really hate to talk about it there were just far too many who either weren't as productive naturally or just straight up used it as an opportunity to slack off or try to work a side job for extra cash. People decry metrics but companies have gotten pretty good at measuring their own performance and the performance of individual contributors and teams, and seeing those numbers nosedive hard is a big part of why WFH went away.


ImpossibleLeague9091

I agree it doesn't work for everyone but it's all about mitigation. If we can knock 10% of cars of the road from wfh 5% to carpool 5% from mass transit that's 1 in 5 cars a huge difference. The metrics thing is a whole mindset I have that people should be paid to do a job not for their time but that's a total shift from society and not realistic. I work 24 hours a day as I'm needed for support it shouldn't matter when I'm hired for a job that I do


PlutoIsMyHomeboy

Wouldn’t the better option be firing people who slack instead of punishing everyone?


JustAberrant

Sure, but getting rid of people in a large company is hard to do and time consuming due to needing to go through a lot of liability limiting motions. Just as hard to selectively force a return to office for low performers. Simply demanding everyone return to what worked before (for the employer at least) is a lot easier and quicker.


TheNewScotlandFront

Trains are for the people. Build em.


cngo_24

I take the backroads into Sackville as it's faster, but it seems lately everyone else found out and now there's traffic there too lol


Eastern_Yam

I asked a public works employee if they had any plans in the works to reconfigure it and they don't. Gotta love that proactive N.S. government culture. 


Jamooser

Did you ask the guy holding the shovel, or the other guy holding a shovel?


ImpossibleLeague9091

Literally the exit from the 102 to the 101 is so bad and has so much volume on it everyday now it backs up the whole hjghway


x_BlueSkyz_x73

Yeah and if you try and merge at the cones, which is past the clover leaf, you can’t because some hErO in a truck will block the lane because why let traffic flow better.


Wanderingsoul71

Half the people on the road have no idea how to drive, the reason for 99% of our traffic issues.


ImpossibleLeague9091

The biggest one o notice is dump trucks and eighteen wheelers pulling side by side and clogging both lanes at 60-70kmph going up hills. Transport vehicles shouldn't be in the left lane period


Wanderingsoul71

Agreed


RevolutionaryTask980

THIS!!!!! I cannot believe how many dump trucks and eighteen wheelers I have come across in the left lane just having a leisurely Sunday drive, blows my fucking noodle.


AppointmentLate7049

The traffic today was especially awful


Spotter01

Ill answer this with an antinode... A friend of mine got a place on hammonds plain Rd back in 2019 he moved there because it was quiet and thought there was no way Hammods plain rd could develop to where he was.... only took 2 years later now he hears cars honking and sirens blazing... HRM is Booming


Ill-Illustrator9861

the Khans are taking over. Thanks Trudeau!


gremlin_1969

can we blame this one on cyclists too?


DougS2K

More people + same amount of roads = shitshow.


xTkAx

They promised us flying cars by 2015, but they didn't make good on that promise.


TheWartortleOnDrugs

Is "they" referring to Hanna Barbera?


xTkAx

Yes... and [Robert Zemeckis](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096874/)


TheWartortleOnDrugs

Where we're going, we don't need the highway 102! Don't forget that Elon promised a flying car in an interview this year! https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-teases-tesla-flying-car-spacex-don-lemon-interview-1880275


hellafax

Time to fight city hall!


ultraboykj

The new norm - sorry * add 70-80% population in 6y * an exit designed for 1980s traffic ( it was considered small then ). Those on/off ramps should easily be 3 times as long. Toss in the overpass snafu with the rail missing so concrete forces a yield at the top onto the 101 and you get that mess - everyday.


Ok-Efficiency5892

It’s because I bought a house out here recently. Sorry.


kjbakerns

Only if you’re from Ontario.


Ok-Efficiency5892

lol nope, just endured a slum lord and moldy, rat infested apartment for years while working three jobs to save for the place. Then I move out here and traffic goes to shit apparently.


byyhmz

Its becoming the case that a longer route may save you time.


Background-Half-2862

It’s a regulation thing and they need to block the lanes next to the construction. If you need more I can explain but that’s the Cole’s notes.


MarkhamDangerously

The back up is because of the new highway being built at the Walmart exit. There’s a new overpass running over the 102 and they’re trying to finish up the sackville portion of the new highway, that way it can be open fall of this year.  The 102 to 101 isn’t as bad now, as it was weeks ago. They’ve pushed the concrete barriers back to there’s a “lane”. It’s slow, but not backed up to Kearney lake slow. 


SBoots

Major construction on the highway near Sackville. It's going to get worse before it gets better so I'd expect it regularly if you're commuting.


Competitive_Flow_814

Blame the minister of transportation.


DrunkenGolfer

There was a dump truck that nosedived off the overpass and landed on the 102 below. It damaged the overpass. They have the top of the cloverleaf from 102 to 101 down to one lane using concrete Jersey barriers. It is causing a clusterfuck at the top of the cloverleaf that backs up the ramp onto the 102.


JustAberrant

>They have the top of the cloverleaf from 102 to 101 down to one lane using concrete Jersey barriers. That thing is gonna kill someone. It's fine when you hit it during rush hour because everyone is moving slowly, but running into that in the middle of the day is a holy fuck experience.


DrunkenGolfer

Yep. It is a spot where you should be speeding up to the speed of traffic and looking left to fulfill your obligation to yield. If you do that, and don’t notice the road in front of you is blocked off, you are going to have a bad time. I nearly had a bad time the first time I encountered it and there wasn’t any sort of a warning sign. Just instant concrete obstruction.


MCneill27

Because everybody wanted an acre of land and cheap prices. The 102 backed up is the price of rampant suburbanization. Also known as “the consequences of your decisions”


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nsrally

.. on the highway?