Suburbs and the city: With changes, both can be better for Halifax families
Those living in areas like Bedford and the North End both deserve safe, convenient and lively communities without unnecessary trade-offs, writes Tristan Cleveland.
By Tristan ClevelandStarMetro Halifax
Tue., June 5, 2018timer4 min. read
HALIFAX—Halifax's future depends on families choosing to make this city home, and for that, we have a problem. Both our suburban and urban communities force families to make completely unnecessary sacrifices.
I spoke with two parents this week, one living in the suburban community of West Bedford, one living in the Hydrostone Market, in urban North End Halifax. Both expressed enormous pride in their communities — and both described unnecessary tradeoffs.
Dirk Staatsen has two daughters, 12 and 15. His family used to live in Holland in a lively urban community, but they specifically chose Halifax to live in West Bedford, something I was encouraged to hear.
"We were looking for space with less noise and fewer issues with neighbours, but without having to live in the boonies."
They wanted safe, quiet cul-de-sacs and greater privacy, but didn't want to live so far out that they would need a second car. West Bedford makes that single-car lifestyle possible thanks to its stores, restaurants, parks, and transit, saving the family about ten grand a year.
But West Bedford could offer more. Dirk says he wishes he had more parks and businesses like LF Bakery and Salvatores near home. And while the commuter bus takes him right to work, the community has poor transit at any other time of day. On weekends, it has none.
And here's what's odd about West Bedford: there is no reason it shouldn't be able to offer these things. Homes are tightly packed together on the street, to the point Dirk has to turn his TV down at night to avoid bugging his neighbours. That kind of medium density should make a lot of amenities possible.
The trouble is that the streets have enormous gaps between them, so while homes are tightly arranged, the neighbourhood actually has very low density.
The strangest thing about West Bedford is its apartment towers. It has lots of them, and so if they were clustered around a local centre, they could support high-frequency transit and a thriving main street. But since the towers are scattered willy-nilly, they support nothing.
If we took exactly same mix of homes and apartments that already exist in West Bedford and just arranged them better, Dirk and his family could enjoy a vastly better quality of life. It's frustrating.
Ben Wood lives in the heart of the city, but in a lot of ways he and his wife want similar things in their community.
"We can walk to a bakery, butcher shop, coffee shop. I like that at any time I can walk out my front door and access anything in the city." Like Dirk, their family gets by with just one car. "I only use my car to run the occasional errand, which saves a lot of money."
The primary downside, however, is traffic. "I'm concerned my son can't run out my front door safely. When we walk, we don't really feel safe on many streets. The cars are going really quickly right next to us."
Perversely, many of those drivers live on quiet, safe cul-de-sacs with no traffic. According to Statistics Canada, about nine in 10 people in West Bedford drive to work, while in the Hydrostone, the majority of people walk, bike, or take transit. West Bedford enjoys safety while making Ben's community dangerous.
The solution is simple. People should drive the same speed on urban residential streets that they drive in their own quiet cul-de-sacs, around 30 km/h. If people want that for themselves, all families should have it.
As a culture, we have to get used to 30 km/h for local streets. At that speed, a car is a fast, convenient vehicle that hits few people and kills almost no one. At 50 km/h, drivers kill nearly half of anyone they hit, something no one wants to do.
Driving from North Street to Lady Hammond Drive, reducing the speed limit would add less time to a trip than a single traffic light, but it would vastly improve the lives of families. On slow, pedestrian-friendly streets families are three times as likely to let their kids walk to school.
Kids play outside all summer on the urban street where I live because it's narrow and people drive safely. Driving there doesn't feel excessively slow. It just feels normal.
Suburban and urban families are not from different planets. Both Ben and Dirk want space, privacy, convenience, transportation options, and safety. Dirk's family prioritizes space and privacy a bit more, and Ben's prioritizes convenience. These are inevitable trade-offs, which is why we need to have both great suburban and urban communities.
But right now, we make suburban families sacrifice convenience and walking and we make urban families sacrifice safety. To make this a great city for families, we have to stop forcing these completely unnecessary sacrifices. All communities should have high-quality transit, playgrounds, and main streets, and they should all be safe. These things are the basic set of responsibilities of a city to its people.
With better planning and design, all families would be able to find the basic ingredients of the good life.