Abstract Manager

The Windsor Street Exchange is a major bottleneck in the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia forming one of the few connections across Halifax Harbor as well as providing access to the Port and the central business district. Thousands of commuters utilize this intersection every day and it is a critical component of the Halifax regional and local road network. When concepts were evaluated for this intersection, engineers were left scratching their heads wondering why nothing they were doing was working; was this an unfixable corridor?

It took expanding the focus of the analysis to observe nearby upstream and downstream behavior to recognize how other regional bottlenecks were affecting the main intersection. This deeper dive revealed multiple areas along the Bedford Highway corridor on either side of the Exchange that were negatively affecting the main intersection.  While the intersection itself was the critical issue, it was not alone. These adjacent bottlenecks could be addressed with low-cost solutions and allowed the main concept to be evaluated comprehensively. The final recommendation included displaced left turns, a signalized rotary, one-way conversions and had to account for freight access to a port, pedestrians, access to and from a regional multiuse path, and transit all together in the single most congested point in the city. 

This presentation will explore the concept evaluation process of Windsor Street Exchange as well as two other case studies and examine how taking a step back can reveal critical issues that might have otherwise been missed.