About 100 Dartmouth residents who came to a city planning session
Monday night appeared unified in their position: They have no love
whatsoever for the imminent expansion of Metro Transit’s bridge
terminal into an adjacent wilderness area.
Residents charge that Common land has through the years been
improperly sold to private developers and eaten away at by questionable
operations like the Sportsplex, which is nominally open to the public
but has a large membership fee. The terminal expansion, say residents,
is more of the same, an attack on what should be inviolable green
space.
The “public input” meeting was the second of two called by
engineering firm CBCL, which is contracted to write a 20-year plan for
the Dartmouth Common. In general, the residents seemed pleased that,
bus terminal aside, CBCL had responded positively to their input from
the first meeting.
CBCL’s proposed plan for the Common includes an outdoor skating
rink, an ampitheatre and more trails along the waterfront, and calls
for the city to buy the McDonald’s on Nantucket Avenue and turn the
ground beneath it back to park land. That plan will go to city council
for approval sometime next year, said CBCL’s Gordon Smith.
As originally planned, the new bus terminal would have stretched up
Nantucket to within just a few metres of Dartmouth High School. The
revised plan, however, orients the terminal perpendicular to Nantucket,
stretching through the wilderness area to Thistle Street.
Smith himself is pained by the terminal plan, but said the expansion
plan was demanded by city council. “That train has left the station,”
he said.
“It’s a huge thing we’re giving up, and it requires great
enumeration,” said resident Jean Llewellyn, who noted that the Common
plan comes with no dedicated funding to achieve any of its lofty
goals.
Work on the bus terminal, however, will commence almost immediately,
in time for use by next summer. [Disclosure: I live very close to the
Dartmouth Common.] —Tim Bousquet
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.
I don’t see why they are even doing these studies… has that much changed since the last round of studies and consultations done in the early 90s by Dartmouth City Sperry/McLennan Planners? No. Another excuse to keep another group of consultants in business.
Why the bus terminal isn’t being moved to Downtown Dartmouth, next to the Ferry Terminal, is beyond me. Stupid Halifax City Council.
Why do you put public input in quotes? Is it because your “fair and balanced” reporting isn’t up to snuff? Or is it because your bias of living very close to the Common is showing?
I live very close to the Common, and commute from that hell-hole of a transit station every day. Where should the new terminal go? Across the street on the Keating held empty lot? The traffic entry and exit points are all wrong for it.
Smith is “pained” by the plan? Council “demanded” the expansion? Did Mr. Smith bravely man the ramparts holding back the howling elected officals, while a tear briefly formed in his eye for the pristine land about to be lost.
Bullshit. The land in question is mainly used by stoners from DHS hiding from their teachers.
Let’s get realistic about transit and start to fix some of the problems instead of nattering about an over grown meadow full of tokers and drinkers.
You mean the ferry terminal that has the amphitheater next to it and hosts multiple events and concerts and creates revenue? Yes let’s stick it there, it totally wouldn’t cause any weird traffic snarls either.
“Public input” is in quotes because that was the purpose of the meeting.
Frankly, I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about the bus terminal, but I disclosed my potential conflict. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.
That piece of land between the Sportsplex parking lot and Dartmouth High is certainly far from pristing wilderness area! I live in this neighbourhood, and you couldn’t pay me to walk through there. As Mr. Luthor pointed out in his post, you’d be displacing far more teenage gropers and stoners than you would birds and reptiles.
I think the greater public need in this instance is for a better bus terminal for the thousands of commuters that pass through this collection and drop-off point, not to preserve some marginal green space.
Swamp Donkey… ever been to the other side of the Ferry terminal you dimwit? You know, the multi-hectare desolate lot with nothing but gravel parking lots… you know… the CITY OWNED piece of land to the right? Jesus…
It is mostly owned by CN, dartmouthy, and the rest of it is subject to right of ways.
Not a bad idea, the spot the station is on now is a hub, and it would be difficult to re-route the buses.
Dartmouthy: yes, I have. CN property, just like Luthor said. It’s waterfront property. Even if the city owned all of it it wouldn’t go for a bus terminal. That “urban wilderness” area is a shithole. It was a shithole ten years ago.
Why should the city buy a perfectly viable McDonalds, tear it down, and turn it into more parkland? So the crack dealers from the projects next to it can have a place to do business and shoot guns at each other? Unbelievable. If there is a way to waste tax dollars, Jim Smith can find it.
Yes most of the land on the waterfront is owned by CN, that is true… but the block on the opposite corner from Queen’s Square – across the street from Belmont House and Alderney Gate – Bounded by North Street, Alderney Drive and Ochterloney? Is City land. No land purchase necessary. It’s on a 4 lane road (Alderney) that is about a two minute drive from the bridge, yet a 10 minute walk at least, and during inclement weather quite a jaunt.
The lot I am describing is also quite a bit below grade, at least a story… a two story bus terminal (one level for inbound, one level for outbound) would be entirely feasible without any ROW issues, and as an added benefit it strings together the ferry and transit systems.
The 54,58,59,60,61,63, and 68 all use Alderney already – I think the only busses that would have to go past the bridge would be the 1, the 51, the 55 and the 10… any others?
It would be great for Downtown Dartmouth businesses and convenient for Metro Transit customers, especially those looking to make transfers between bus/ferry – and hey they could even build it into a larger parkade for park and ride possibilities!
That’s all I’m sayin!
I agree the park in behind Dartmouth High is pretty horrible… but I don’t think tearing it down to pave even more of the Bridgehead area is the right way to go either.
Really good concept dartmouthy!
A 2 level terminal would be very cool.
See that’s pretty clever. I wonder if they even considered a 2 level terminal.
Probably not, since it would be very costly. It would have to be quite the reinforced structure to support all the weight of those buses on the top level, and on top of that the plot of land isn’t really all that big anyway.
Dartmouthy – to answer your question on whether or not any other buses would have to be re-routed down Alderney to the new terminal… let’s see. The 1, 10, 16, 41, 51, 52, 53, 55, 64 and 87 would all have to in some way or another be re-routed into downtown Dartmouth. That would be a pretty major undertaking, screw up a whole lot of schedules, and make for a lot of unnecessary back-tracking. The current location is the ideal location for this terminal because Nantucket and Wyse Road is a major hub, with routes coming across the bridge, routes coming from downtown Dartmouth/Alderney, routes coming from the north end/Wyse/Victoria/Windmill, and routes coming from east/Thistle/Woodland. They all converge on this one spot, locating the terminal into downtown Dartmouth won’t fix anything, people are still going to do their transferring where it makes the most logical sense to transfer, at Wyse and Nantucket.
Oh yeah hfx-chris, your comments are correct.
I was just commenting that it was an imaginative idea, instead of just the typical “it sucks” response.
I checked, and there isn’t enough space by the Gate.
alderney gate would be a good spot to have the bus terminal… but i would have to agree wit hfx_chris, a lot of buses would have to back track costing more tax payers money and time for commuters. the bridge terminal is in the best location possible. people will transfer where convenient, meaning if the bridge terminal was moved to alderney gate, we would have a super over crowded “bus stop” at the bridge. clearly the current site needs expanding, but the park land should be incorporated in the design some how, i use that terminal every day, it would be great to move it close to the park land and i know it would scare the “Drugies” and “thugs” away having so many people around to call the police if they smell weed or see violence., i used to be one of them so called “Druggies” way back when and you want to hide form the public so the police aren’t alerted to the bad activities, moving the bus stop near the park would solve this, and would create a reason for the city to police and clean the park. as for the design, the whole length of the terminal should be enclosed entirely to make sure there is enough room inside for all the commuters in the winter and rainy days, i hate waiting outside in the cold and rain, going to work wet and cold is not cool. as for the 2 story bus terminal, if placed on a hill could work i guess… but could be to expensive for metro transit as funding is a major problem for them.
I realize it’s a concern for some people, but as a resident of the neighbourhood and someone who walks through it twice a day, I’ve never had personal experience with crime at the wilderness park. There are, sometimes, some high school kids smoking pot in there, but they’ve never caused me any problems. Heck, when I was in high school I hung out in the woods next to school and smoked pot, too. I never caused anyone any problems, and look how I turned out, heh.
Let’s not turn pot smokers into thugs. There’s no evidence for that. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Those of you pooh-poohing the downtown Alderney terminal idea forget one thing: it would allow integration of the bus service with the ferries. Right now the two do not match up in any way, and if you take the ferry to Dartmouth you can be looking at an hour to finally find a bus at the Sportsplex taking you where you need to go. It makes a lot of sense to put the terminal downtown.
Bo Gus: Your idea would simply pass the frequency from one section of routes to another. For example:
Lets say you are taking a #59 which currently starts at the bridge terminal, terminating and starting the route at the ferry terminal might save it 15 minutes so you could have a 45 minute turnaround instead of 60 minutes. But…
You then have the start that current start/end at the bride (and don’t travel to Alderney) adding 15 minutes to their route to cover the extra distance. That 30 minute frequency of the #53 is already tight, now your plan would mean it needs 45 minutes to complete the route. Do you honestly think transit officials will come up with extra money to keep the buses running at the same frequency? No, they’ll cut back service on routes that now take longer to do and that’ll make for some unhappy transit riders.
And what about the number of routes that will be backtracking for no reason from the middle of downtown: The 52 is a good example – from the bridge to downtown, the past the bridge again enroute to Burnside. And the same for the Bayer’s Lake trips. Thats a lot of mileage (fuel, tires, oil changes & wear and tear) on the buses for no reason and the operator costs will also increase with no increased fare box revenues. Same idea would apply to the #10, 16, 51, 53, 55 & 87.
The Sportsplex site is central and on the main route to/from Halifax, and is by far the best choice if we want to get people onto the buses instead of in their cars. People complain transit routes are too infrequent, often because of the routing, and then we get a suggestion that will add even more wasted time on bus routes. Sorry, I’m not buying it.
Ooops, the first part of my 3rd paragraph should have read:
You then have routes that currently start/end at the bride….
The worst part about this plan is that they’re actually considering… no, how dare they even suggest tearing down that McDonald’s! The place is practically like a community centre for the area. Didn’t they just do renovations there, anyway?
In fact, journeys do indeed start and end with a bride.
Oooops again… fuck I shouldn’t have typed anything in the last 24 hours thanks to corrections needed over and over.
hahahahaha Tim, good one