My three year anniversary of moving to Nova Scotia just passed at the end of May, it slipped by without me noticing much. Even so, three years is nothing to sneeze at; it means it's been three years since I've seen most of my friends in Calgary, three years since I've seen the mountains, three years since I've been able to look across an expanse of land like the prairies and see for miles and miles to the horizon. Not that I miss it much, I think of Calgary as somewhere I want to be, like, never.
I have plans to visit Calgary in the summer of 2013 and although I look forward to seeing all the people I left behind, I have no love of the city itself. Just thinking about driving down Deerfoot stresses me out - not because I'm a nervous driver or am anxious about the all that traffic after the Nova Scotia version of rush hour (10 cars stopped at a light at once ... ooooh, scary) - it's that there are just so many people who are angry in the city, and they drive angry. It would seep through the air vents into the car I was driving and, just like a zombie virus, I'd become just another suppressed and angry Calgary driver. I have no desire to relive that experience. I'd prefer a chauffeur to drive me around so I don't have to experience that impotent fury. Thankfully I know that when I return to Nova Scotia, all the weirdness here will be welcome and I'll once again get to laugh when people talk about the stress of driving in Halifax which is basically Calgary traffic at midnight.
Why weird? Well, for one thing the 'Yield' sign appears to have either no meaning or a different meaning here. According to my road knowledge the Yield sign means that if it applies to the road you're on, you shoulder check for traffic and if it's clear you may accelerate into the lane you wish to travel in. If it's not clear you must brake to allow the traffic to pass and then make your own lane change. It does not mean you shoulder check and, if there is traffic coming up on your left hand side, that you accelerate immediately and attempt to 'merge' into the lane. This results in people, who know what a Yield means, having to brake suddenly from 100 km/hr highway travel to avoid colliding with your stupid ass. When you are on the highway and a Mac truck with two trailers is coming up that exit ramp on your right and intending to not yield to the highway traffic, you can guess who is going to brake first. I've seen people in front of me get cut off and I've also seen people who are not yielding and are also not being let in by the highway traffic finding themselves on the shoulder of the highway. I suspect they have no idea why the traffic flow did not let them in. This is why:
What these morons are attempting to do is called a Merge. That sign looks like this and let me tell you, there is either a severe shortage of Merge signs in the province or a severe lack of people in highway design who know it even exists. I have rarely seen them in my travels and given the way people drive here and the number of Nova Scotians who live in Calgary, the total mayhem of traffic there is beginning to make sense. But I digress ... I love a good merge. Done correctly it doesn't interrupt the flow of traffic and as long as everyone plays by the rules your standard merge should result in no hurt feelings from either driver.
Now, although the majority of people do not appear to know how to use a Yield, I also think it has no business being at the entry to a highway. Asking traffic attempting to enter a 100km/hr highway to come to stop, if necessary, in order to get onto the highway is, as you can imagine, very dangerous. The potential for accidents is very high and I think the only reason there aren't more is because there isn't a high volume of traffic here. Plus a lot of the drivers are super old (and I mean shouldn't-be-driving old) and don't like to drive on the highway, praise be for that small mercy.
Nova Scotia, or at least Pictou County, also seems to be bad at construction management. Currently there is construction on the causeway that links Pictou, my town, to the closest major centre of New Glasgow. The only other way to get there is to go around on the Alma road (pronounced Al-ma, not All-ma which is how I would say it - soooooo Pictou County ... more on that later) which takes an extra 10 minutes or so. Not bad considering some days the wait to cross the causeway because of the construction is 40 minutes. Best to go 'round. This photo is part way across the causeway, it's about a kilometre long if that helps - on the left is the harbour and on the right is Middle River - genius name that since the other two rivers are East and West. Brilliant.
The year I moved here Chruch Street, so named because of all the churches on it, was badly in need of repair. It is so bad I take a route through residential streets to avoid it even though the side streets aren't that much better, I just couldn't take the beating of potholes and uneven road surface. This is a 'tourist town' and as far as I'm concerned the town should be ashamed of the condition of that road for the last 3 years or however long it's been in that state. It's the main road to get into and through town and to have tour buses, campers, trailers and any kind of tourist come into town on that road is embarrassing. The town keeps talking about how it wants to boost tourism, improve its image and encourage more people to move here but I can tell you the single biggest deterrent to someone wanting to return is having to drive on crappy roads.
So, last year they made a big production about how they were going to re-surface Church Street. They claimed it would be completed by Winter 2011. Here we are, it's halfway through 2012 and the road has still not been resurfaced. Why? Because they decided that before they would do the road, they wanted to replace all of the sidewalks along Church Street. It's only about a kilometre long so no biggy right? It's been *months* and they are about 75% done the sidewalks. It's only taken them about 6 months less January and February for heavy snow. I suppose they imagined all those tourists walking along the lovely sidewalks and not complaining about the roads. It's almost high season and we not only don't have a main thorough-fare into town that won't take 5 years of life off your vehicle's suspension, it's also clogged up with detours, construction cones, people and machinery. Just where are those huge motorhomes, campers and trailers supposed to drive to get through the town? Up Water Street? I work on Water and let me tell you, it's not intended to be a main drag for heavy traffic flow. The preceding missive also demonstrates what I like to call 'Nova Scotia Time' which requires a blog all its own.
At this point thougth traffic is the least of the Town's concerns and if I sound frustrated by the Town of Pictou, and the County istself, you'd be right. There are a lot of things this place could do that would improve the image and get people out here - not only tourists but people who want to live here and make a life for themselves. It makes me crazy to see a town like Lunenburg doing so well when Pictou has just as much to offer but has no apparent plan to make it happen. I work in the town, I live here too and I want to see it do well ... maybe I'll run for office. Tamzin ... politics ... scary thought!
The entire time I was reading this my inside voice was wondering whether you should check into jobs on town council or whatever passes for politics in that neck of the woods. So funny to get to the last sentence. And why not?
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