Windsor Street Exchange redesign needs bus and bike lanes: advocates

For cyclists, even experienced ones, the thought of riding through the Windsor Street Exchange in Halifax is scary.

When asked if he bikes through the WSE, Talan Iscan, with the Halifax Cycling Coalition, said no. He has two kids to think of.

“For a cyclist, it’s treacherous,” said Iscan, who regularly cycles through heavy traffic in other parts of the city. “I wouldn’t dare cycle through that exchange.”

The old infrastructure obviously had cars top of mind when it was built (it has been much the same since the ’70s) but three local advocacy groups want to make sure that when it comes to the redesign, vehicles are lower on the priority list.

It’s More than Buses, the Halifax Cycling Coalition and Walk n Roll Halifax say the redesign must have protected bike lanes, bus lanes, separated sidewalks, a traffic speed limit of 40km-h, and protected intersections.

City planners say there will be active transportation elements, but they’re limited by the size of the property at the intersection of Bedford Highway, Windsor Street and Lady Hammond Road. It is a crucial access point to the peninsula and downtown for the movement of people and cargo. Every day around 40,000 to 50,000 vehicles move through there (in a pre-pandemic count).

Redevelopment timeline towards construction

WSE is a well-known traffic headache. In 2019, HRM, the province and the Port of Halifax applied for funding through the National Trade Corridors Fund from Transport Canada and was approved. What followed was years of public engagement, consultation and in 2021, two design options: one that involved roundabouts and the other that used intersections.

After more public engagement and an engineering study done this year, HRM staff are now preparing to bring a functional design to council this fall for their direction toward a final design.

“It will allow us to explain where we had to make trade-offs and they’ll ultimately be able to weigh in on how they want us to proceed,” said Scott Donahoe, HRM project manager. “Once we get their direction, we’ll get into the detailed design.”

They’re not confined to the two options or combining elements of both, Donahoe said. 

“We’re taking the best of both options but also looking at other items as well.”

The three advocate groups planned to give a presentation to HRM’s transportation meeting in July, but it was cancelled due to the flooding.

The Halifax website says a final design is expected this year and construction would begin in 2024, but Donahoe said that’s not the case.

“The functional plan, we plan on completing that (this year) and the final design will be progressing throughout next year,” Donahoe said.

Bus lanes

The two designs on the table right now don’t have provisions for continuous bus or bike lanes, which is a problem, said Scott Edgar with It’s More than Buses.

“It flies in the face of exactly what the Integrated Mobility Plan was supposed to be about,” Edgar said. “It’s like the municipality decided to ignore its own plan.”

It’s so frustrating, he said, because the WSE is absolutely crucial to the future of the rapid transit in the city and its corridor routes.

“The idea that we’re going to pour this incredible amount of money and time into rebuilding the entire exchange and not make it possible for buses to avoid traffic is just wild,” he said. “It’s like transportation planning in HRM just took a step 15 years into the past.”

If the goal is to get people out of their cars and take the bus, it needs to be an attractive option, like buses being able to skip traffic jams in a bus lane, Edgar said.

“It’s stressful to drive, it’s frustrating and slow on the bus and I can tell you from experience it’s stressful as a pedestrian,” he said. “And I do not have the courage to ride my bike through the Windsor Street Exchange.”

Making it friendly for cyclists and pedestrians

Once the WSE redevelopment goes up, it will be around for three or four decades so it needs to be done right, said Iscan.

“Our view is this shouldn’t be an exchange that divides the neighbourhoods, this should be an exchange that unites the neighbourhoods and the only way you can achieve this, is make it accessible, safe and comfortable for all users of our streets and sidewalks,” he said.

Protected bike lanes are an important ingredient, he said, to prevent any conflicts with vehicles or pedestrians on the sidewalk.

A multi-use trail at a busy intersection won’t work, he said, especially with higher speeds with electric bikes and scooters.

“Separating cyclists from people who are walking or rolling would be essential to make this an inclusive, welcoming place,” he said.

The other crucial element is to make sure that intersections are safe for cyclists and pedestrians to cross, he added.

“There’s plenty of space to include all of these things in the final design.”

A tight squeeze

It’s still “early days” said Donahoe to reveal what will be in the functional plan councillors will consider this fall.

“We’ve engaged a design consultant to bring us further so expect over the next few months we’ll have more visibility into what kind of a functional design will look like,” he said.

A main objective of the redevelopment is to make traffic flow better between the MacKay Bridge and the Bedford Highway and improve truck access to the Fairview Cove Container Terminal.

But there will be active transportation elements in the design, he said. The first options released two years ago included multi-use pathways and sidewalks.

“The direction of the city is (that) it’s very important for active transportation and transit so we’re certainly considering these in the design options and we’re confident we’ll be able to make a lot of improvements,” Donahoe said. 

Mike Connors, HRM manager of transportation planning, said they are looking at all options (bike lanes and bus lanes) but the available space is “very constrained.”

“The earlier concepts looked at multi-use paths because of that (space constraints) and there are so many trade-offs to consider here — there are vehicles, trucks, buses and people walking and cycling,” Connors said. “There will be compromises to be made, but we will be at the very least providing multi-use paths, but we’ll be looking at what we can do to provide more separation.”

The WSE project was originally pegged at $51 million — shared by Transport Canada, HRM, the province and the Port of Halifax — but that will no doubt escalate by the time it gets to the construction phase. A cost update will be included in the functional design presentation.

Port project progress

The WSE project dovetails with work by the Port of Halifax to update the rail infrastructure in the area.

Lane Farguson, spokesman for the Port of Halifax, said initial work has started as planning around the WSE moves forward.

“Right now, we are building a new maintenance shed near the South End Container Terminal, and when that is done, we’ll be able to take down the existing maintenance shed which will free up room for additional rail sidings that will be a part of the rail solution,” he said in an email. “At the same time, we continue with the planning at either end of the rail cut as we work with CN and the terminal operator to determine what that rail solution will look like.”