Published July 13, 2006.Why we have rush hour traffic

Out there somewhere in this city there is some guy (or woman) who is in charge of making rush hour go smoother; I submit this, in the hopes of him somehow getting wind of this. If you’re that guy, or know that guy, tell him this: “Build a frikkin’ pedestrian overpass across Nantucket between the Sportplex/Bus Terminal and that strip mall parking lot”.

Anyone that crosses the MacDonald Bridge into Dartmouth in the afternoon rush hour knows exactly where I’m talking about. Everyday traffic crossing the MacDonald Bridge into Dartmouth is pulled to a standstill as an endless line of pedestrians crosses a crosswalk that slices across Nantucket immediately after Wyse road Nantucket intersection. For those who don’t know this is a considerable amount of traffic. This standstill traffic waiting for the unending stream of pedestrians to pass, builds up, and then holds back traffic at that first set of lights after the MacDonald toll booth (the intersection of Nantucket and Wyse). The build-up at the lights, holds up the line at the toll. The build-up at the toll holds up the traffic on the bridge. The traffic on the bridge then holds up traffic on all streets heading towards the bridge, which contributes to a large amount of this city’s rush hour traffic. If somebody in charge would just build a pedestrian overpass where this aggravating crosswalk is, the Dartmouth bound rush hour traffic in Halifax would be greatly improved at relatively little cost.

Wanna-Be Civic Engineer