Plans for development of Birch Cove call for a new roundabout on the Bedford Highway, two 10- to 12-storey residential buildings on the waterfront and a new bridge over the CN tracks.
Exact details of the plans won’t be made public until Monday night, but Terry Drisdelle, a planner of with the Waterfront Development Corporation, revealed the broad outlines of the proposed development to me last Friday. The plan to be presented Monday is an amalgamation of the “best ideas” of three earlier working plans, says Drisdelle.
Both the roundabout and the waterfront towers will likely prove controversial.
The proposed roundabout would replace the present intersection of Kearney Lake Road and the Bedford Highway, one of the busiest roadways in Nova Scotia. Roundabouts are very common in Europe, and are gaining acceptance with North American traffic engineers because they slow traffic without stopping it, and send merging cars in the same direction, as opposed to against each other, as in traditional signaled intersections. Moreover, says Drisdelle, a roundabout will give motorists more “breaking out” points to access the new Birch Cove lands.
Still, partly due to a history of problems at the Armdale Rotary/Roundabout, the Nova Scotian public has not generally supported new roundabouts. For example, a proposal to simplify the north end intersection of Duffus Street, Novalea Drive and Devonshire Avenue was met with scorn by councillor Jerry Blumenthal.
Drisdelle says the towers, occupying the present site of Chinatown restaurant, are the trade-off that makes the Birch Cove plan possible: United Gulf Developments, which owns the site, will agree to pay for infrastructure costs like the new bridge, and to provide large areas of public amenities including a waterfront park, in return for increased density allowances.
The proposed bridge roadway will leave the Bedford Highway just south of the Birch Cove store, and head over the tracks to access the Chinatown property. Some of the working plans call for placing the tracks in a tunnel, but it’s unclear if that proposal made it into the final plans.
“Residents in the area want Birch Cove to become a destination, a neighbourhood,” explains Drisdelle of the plans. The plans will be made public Monday, 7pm, at St. Peter’s Anglican Church. For more information, see tinyurl.BirchCove.
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This article appears in Mar 11-17, 2010.
OK, I am totally sick and tired of this idiotic uninformed anti-roundabout drivel all of our media, not just The Coast, are spewing. That Armdale thing is not a modern roundabout. It is something stuck part way between an old Traffic Circle and a Modern Roundabout. There are pros and cons related to modern roundabouts, but for the sake of truth, at least learn about them before coming out against them and tossing them out there as lightening rods of negativity. It is 2-bit journalism to prey upon the fears of the uneducated who fear only change, and not inform instead such that good change is possible.
A modern roundabout is far more safe, especially in terms of automobile fatalities, than a signalized intersection. One could argue that a successful anti-roundabout campaign will result in needless death. If there is a safety issue with modern roundabouts, it is ensuring that traffic entering and leaving the circle is slowed enough to keep pedestrian crossings at the intersection safe. Large diameter circles allow traffic to sometimes exit too fast, sometimes so fast that to stop for pedestrians requires emergency type reactions. But done right, they are simply better. And you don’t end up waiting at 1 in the morning at a red light with nothing coming in either direction.
If you can’t drive through one properly, you are not fit to drive. Period. The rest of the world does just fine.
Actually, I take part of that back, above. The article is fairer than most to date with what is in the text. However, using the word “roundabout” in the headline maintains the idea that it must be something the public won’t like. A flashpoint. And all for what? Rile people up to sell advertising? I’d like to know more about the Armdale thing. Who says it is not better than what was there before? Why? Why is it trotted out every time when others are in use around NS, and more are coming (Uteck Drive will have two). I drive it a lot and I think it is far better.
Brewnoser makes a lot of sense.
My wife and I moved to Halifax four years ago and bought our first house in Birch Cove. We feel very lucky to be here. There’s a nice mix of young and old, and a lot of community spirit. A great example of this is the (now quite liquid) skating rink that Chris Harrington and other community members build every year on the lot near the intersection of Kearney Lake Road and Bedford Highway. But this, and St. Peters Anglican church, are really the only gathering places. I see huge potential in this proposal to create a new village that will provide more places for us to meet and hang out and enjoy the neighbourhood.
I’ll be at the meeting on Monday, with an open mind. I like the roundabout, and as long as it doesn’t significantly compromise pedestrian safety, I’m all for it.
The biggest potential upside for this project is the potential for public interaction with the water. Bedford Basin is beautiful, but let’s face it, the Chinatown parking lot isn’t. I hope people don’t fixate on the roundabout and tall towers (ack! not again!), and instead think about how great it would be to walk on the boardwalk and watch the sunrise/sunset, or use the trail. Someday, in the distant future, I hope that the waterfront trail will be completed all the way to Bedford (I’m not holding my breath for a link to Halifax). How great would that be for a morning run?
And whatever happens, we should try to make sure there’s space somewhere for the community rink. It’s important.
Brewnoser– The Coast is not “spewing”, or even suggesting, an anti-roundabout view.
Personally, I think they’re great ideas, almost always.
From The Coast, Thursday May 18, 2006, re: Armdale
“TPW described the rotary as “not really a rotary or a roundabout,” but rather—brace yourself—“a circular piece of roadway, with traffic signals.” “
So you had it all along. Now, why would we spend all that money to build something that is not really anything?
i live on kearney lake @dunbrack. ive looked at all the proposals and really like them all. i 100% agree with sk8ter. i moved here in Oct. i used to visit halifax alot before moving here, and never really spent time in this part of the city except to drive through on my way out of the city.
birch cove has SO much potential to be a cool little nabe. as already mentioned, there is no place for the people of this area to congregate and enjoy our surroundings. ive been for many walks down kearney lake to the basin, and everytime i walk down there, i imagine how great it would be to be able to walk down and enjoy the water. dreams of mine envision something like the seawall in vancouver, winding the whole way around the basin.
my preferrence is option 1. but op 1 doesnt take into account the little rink. however opt 2 does in incoropertate a little park in that area, so if they can save the park in option 1 then that has my full support, if not then opt 2 has my backing.
Water being one of the most essential necessity of life, becoming an increasing scare resource, needs careful planning and management. Availability of safe quality drinking water is being reduced due to pollution from sewage and industrial waste.
john
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Cheap Hotels Bedford
Traffic Signs-Interesting post. New riders should think how much responsible job is to drive a vehicle, it’s not a fun. Sometimes they disobey traffic rules that leads to collision. We can avoid accidents but for this we need to follow all traffic rules.