Sackville active transportation connector

Happy Cities led engagement with Sackville Manor residents to help shape the design of a safe active transportation crossing over Highway 101, ensuring better access to essential services in Lower Sackville.

Lower Sackville residents meeting to discuss connector options at an open house. (Happy Cities)

Sackville Manor is a community in Lower Sackville of approximately 775 residents who are physically disconnected from the rest of their municipality. Located south of Highway 101, the community is cut off from essential shops, employment, transit, and services in Lower Sackville, including the Transit Terminal and Downsview Plaza mall.

The only existing active transport connection between Sackville Manor and Lower Sackville requires people to take a four-kilometre detour (50-minute walk) to cross Highway 101. To avoid taking this detour, many residents and visitors of Sackville Manor opt instead to take a shortcut across the highway. This shortcut involves an informal and unmaintained crossing at the Exit 2 interchange, which exposes pedestrians to vehicles travelling at high speeds and safety risks.

There have been two pedestrian fatalities along this route since 2011.

Map showing the paths community members take to cross the highway. Path A is the commonly used informal crossing route that a new active transportation connector would seek to replace, while path B shows the route they would currently have to use to cross safely. (Happy Cities)

Due to the dangers of the informal crossing—and its frequent use—the Halifax Regional Municipality explored three design options for implementing a new, safe active transportation connector across Highway 101, through engagement, the community shared their preferred option, and Council endorsed this option in 2024.

Google Street View of the current informal crossing point across Highway 101 that many residents regularly use.

An inclusive engagement process

Partnering with Designpoint Engineering, Happy Cities led engagement on the proposed design options for the highway crossings and made recommendations based on what the community shared. The purpose of this engagement was to gather input from Sackville community members—in particular, those living in Sackville Manor Mobile Home Park—on the design options, and use this feedback to select one of the three options.

We sought to create an inclusive and accessible engagement process. Our engagement strategy focused on three principles;

• Meet residents where they are at rather than ask them to come to us. 

• Engage residents who are often unable to participate in public forums. 

• Offer a variety of easy, accessible, and inclusive ways to give feedback. 

We offered three primary ways for Sackville residents to share their feedback—a survey, pop-up events, and an open house. These three avenues of participation ensured that, regardless of technology abilities, people were able to share their ideas and feedback with us. The survey was available online or and in print form, and was mailed to all residents in the area. Two pop-up engagement events were hosted at the entrance to Sackville Manor Mobile Home Park, located along the informal route that people take to cross the highway. 

Happy Cities hosted two pop-up events and an open house to hear from residents about their hopes and ideas about the connector. (Happy Cities)

The public feedback that helped shape the design of the proposed active transportation crossing is planned to be implemented with provincial funding, ensuring a convenient and safe active transportation connection between Sackville Manor and the Halifax Transit Sackville Terminal.