Tag Archives: roundabouts

Good News at the Willow Tree – Thank You Bill Mont!

Private citizen Bill Mont replaced this Willow Tree, victim of a car crash.

Friends of Halifax Common offer a sincere “Thank You” to Bill Mont for his resolve to plant a new willow tree at the Robie St. & Quinpool Rd. corner. A midst all the distraction over proposed highrises & a proposed roundabout at the “Willow Tree” corner no notice was given to the Willow Tree having gone missing in action. On Nov 29, 2014, a 4 am car crash took down the most recent willow tree that Queen Elizabeth II planted years ago. (See Nick Hood’s car crash video & pics of previous willow trees here…)
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CBC Radio Interview- Common’s Death by a Thousand Cuts

People walk up Citadel Hill through some thick fog on Thursday in Halifax-photo by Jeff Harper, Metro News

On the eve of the Halifax Common’s 252 anniversary CBC Mainstreet’s Stephanie Domet interviews Peggy Cameron. The conversation outlines the many decisions that the city is making in advance of an integrated master plan for the Halifax Common.

There are no rules. Individual decisions outside of a plan are having a cumulative impact and are diminishing the Common. These also preclude the outcome of any planning process related to the now promised Halifax Common Master Plan.

Concerned about what Common will be left for posterity? Or that the Mayor and Council have no vision for the Common?
Email the Mayor and Council at: clerks@halifax.ca.

(begins at 4:10)

Write to Protect the Halifax Common

This year Halifax will commemorate the June 23rd anniversary of the 240 acre Halifax Common grant from King George III by cutting several mature trees to make way for a roundabout at the Cogswell/NorthPark/Ahern/Trollope intersection. Its a fitting tribute

View towards Cunard & North Park

to the on-going onslaught of the Common whereby less than 30 acres remain as public open space. And it suits the City’s habit of ignoring the 1994 Halifax Common Plan.

Now after a 21-year wait this year’s municipal budget includes money to begin the planning process. Time is not on the side of the Common.

Developers are unjustifiably making extensive use of the Development Agreement (DA) application process to ignore the Regional Plan’s existing controls that regulate size, mass, height and set back of buildings for spot-rezoning. Right now there are DA applications for 25-, 28-, 18-, 11-, 24-storey buildings adjacent to the Halifax Common. And an 18-storey building approved next to Camphill Cemetery on Carleton St. and a 30-storey building proposed for Spring Garden Road at Carleton are on Halifax Common land.

By approving DAs for out-of-scale buildings, the Mayor and Council are allowing developers to preclude not just the Halifax Common Master Plan process, but also the Centre Plan and the Halifax Green Network processes. We have yet to ever hear about an Integrated Transportation Strategy and where roundabouts would rank against other priorities such as commuter rail.

Please write the Mayor and Council at clerks@halifax.ca to ask that they stick to the existing rules until new plans are complete. And send comments to the Halifax Green Network https://engage.o2design.com/halifax/engage_map/ asking for regulations to protect the Halifax Common and all public open BLUE space. Continue reading →

Is Parking for the Common Good?

Letter To The Coast Magazine by Peggy Cameron, Coordinator, Friends of the Halifax Common

Why should parking be convenient? Get on board, support commuter rail at: halifax.ca/transit/commuterrail.php The Coast Image credit: Jenn Wall, Cunard Street at North Common

Great job describing myriad reasons why metro pedestrians feel they’re the last on the list. I suspect it’s not the sidewalks that have patience maxed out but also the long-term failure of the city to develop an integrated transportation policy. Decades of widening streets to improve capacity and speed of vehicles (more recently it’s a roundabout fetish) has been to the detriment of meeting real transportation Continue reading →

Letter To The Coast – Roundabouts – Wrong Priority for the Common

total cost estimate $31 million (2011)

Letters to the editor, July 31, 2014, Sidewalk Closed Use Other Side – Julat like spending millions of dollars to widen Robie St. at Cunard or millions to widen Chebucto Road itself, blowing $12.9 million on the North Park roundabouts project is out of sync with a big-picture integrated transportation strategy. The money will do nothing to reduce heavy reliance on cars by improving public transit (buses and trains), land use planning (better ways to access public transportation and active transportation) or moving people in and out of the downtown, not just cars. Continue reading →

Trees, Traffic & Roundabouts

FHC isn’t wading into the pro or anti roundabout on North Park Street debate but instead asks…

North Park Street

1. How does this $12.9 million expenditure fit into an integrated transportation strategy* that is about moving people, not just cars into and out of the downtown? Should the cost $12.9 million be a spending priority when HRM’s 5-year Active Transportation budget is only $42.5 ( ~ $8 million/year); the bikelane budget for the peninsula the next 5 years is only ~$100,000 and there’s no money for supporting auto-ownership-alternatives such as CarShare?
2. Why are these roundabouts being installed in advance of…. Continue reading →