Hundreds of duplicate street names remain 26 years after amalgamation

HRM staff’s focus is currently on providing new civic addresses instead of renaming roads

CITYnews halifax \ Michael Lightston

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The enduring, road-related name game has switched gears.

Five years ago, the Halifax region had 1,830 streets with the same name.

This figure was pared from an even longer list of duplicate names, created after municipal amalgamation in 1996, and doesn’t include roads with similar-sounding names spelled differently, such as Ashley and Ashlea.

(Street names that sound alike are not considered matches by city hall.)

Today, the file of duplicate street names in Halifax Regional Municipality remains large. There are 1,827 of them, said Gayle MacLean, the municipality’s civic-addressing coordinator.

She said priorities have shifted, due to ongoing construction accommodating robust population growth, and staff’s focus is on providing new civic addresses instead of renaming roads.

“We’ve done a lot of renumbering of streets, which is … very similar to renaming in terms of how much work’s involved in changing people’s addresses,” MacLean said in an interview in May. “Those have taken more of a higher priority.”

The municipality’s current civic-addressing policy was adopted in 2002. MacLean said staff use what they call a numbering interval.

It “assigns” one civic number for every six metres of road frontage, she said. “This method leaves numbers for any infill development, basement apartments, backyard suites, etc.,” MacLean said.

She said renumbering properties on the municipality’s streets has included almost 400 addresses on Purcells Cove Road alone.

“We need to be able to provide addresses before people move into … new units,” MacLean said, because it’s essential for dispatching emergency services.

Regarding duplicate names, not one of the 1,827 is in the same community in Halifax Regional Municipality. The majority are matches in Halifax and Dartmouth, MacLean said.

Among the most common street names in HRM: Birch, Church, Maple, Shore and Sunset.

Of the three renamed streets since 2017, two were exact duplicates and one was a similar-sounding name, MacLean said. She said the COVID-19 pandemic “hasn’t really been an issue” on the renaming front.

City hall has a public-safety committee, MacLean said, which acknowledges “there are issues with duplicate street names between adjacent communities” such as Halifax and Bedford.

She said Douglas Drive – there was one in each of the previously mentioned places – was one of the renaming cases in the last five years. The committee had said the streets were in abutting communities, and, for safety’s sake, required one to be given a new name.

“We renamed the one in Halifax because it was the shorter of the two and affected the least number of people,” MacLean told CityNews Halifax. The new name has a somewhat festive ring to it.

In 2018, Douglas Drive in Halifax changed over to Mistletoe Lane. “As in, kissing under the mistletoe,” MacLean said.

The next generation of 911 technology could mean reducing duplicate names in the future “will become less and less” of a public-safety issue, she said.

“We’re … going to improve with those technology advancements to the point where (matching street names) might become such a low priority that we never rename them,” MacLean said.

Increasing cell phone usage and wireless communications mean emergency-response services must change with the times, but it won’t be happening overnight.

According to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, the 911 upgrade “will occur gradually in the coming years.” More information can be found here.

Regional council has the authority to name and rename streets and private roads.

Managing duplicate street names is familiar to people in other communities, too, where municipalities have merged, such as the Ottawa area. In 2001, 12 municipalities were amalgamated into the City of Ottawa.

In Halifax Regional Municipality, created 26 years ago with the merger of four former municipalities, the matter of renaming streets and changing addresses presents “a huge inconvenience for both businesses and residents,” MacLean said.

Although public safety is paramount, HRM’s civic-addressing policy allows residents to propose the renaming of a street, a municipal staff report says. “Any non-public safety street renaming requires that a poll of property owners (living on) the street” be done first, it says.

At least 51 per cent of people on that street must agree with the new name, MacLean said.

Staff “get the ball rolling” by offering a name for residents’ consideration, she said.

Michael Lightstone is a freelance reporter living in Dartmouth