unhappy Winnipegger
 

I joined this thread mostly because It bothers me to live in a north american city of 750, 000 people that has a major Ring Road (trans - canada highway) that is not a freeway, when other smaller cities like Regina and Halifax would have it as a freeway.

Yes, I know this has been talked about before, http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...=137983&page=2 but it seems that the message got lost in trying to explain whether road or lrt is better at promoting sprawl.. in calgary???.. and not why winnipeg really doesnt have any freeways.. is it really because the province of manitoba and the city of winnipeg choose not to spend money on upgrading highways?/ for other reasons unknown, possibly everyone else on this continent sees freeways as a necessity whereas manitoba does not?

Does anyone know of any links that can compare the amount of cars on certain roadways in winnipeg, particularly between roads in and around winnipeg to freeways like the deerfoot or circumferential hwy?

BTW, when a city is designed the way Winnipeg is, being a "freeway free city " is not something to be proud of...:haha:

I also joined because I think Winnipeg could be so much more, I know Winnipeg has made some improvements recently in terms of downtown residential populations, but I think more needs to be done to encourage this, then I believe more businesses that bring people downtown will grow (businesses like restaurants for example, that seem to flourish in places like pembina highway in Fort Richmond, when they could instead be flourishing downtown)

traffic shmaffic....move closer to where you work and find something better to complain about.

traffic is about number 347 on the list of winnipeg's problems...if you can name a city with fewer traffic issues than winnipeg, i would love to hear it.

why exactly is winnipeg embarassing compared to halifax and regina?

I am not sure what exactly this thread is supposed to be about..?

Personally I don't see what the big deal is about "expressways" in cities in the size range of say Winnipeg.

I've driven around Calgary quite a bit, and the expressway system there is great after hours, or when traffic is light, but otherwise it can be a disaster that you cannot avoid if you need to go anywhere.

The beauty about Winnipeg is that for the most part there are about a multiple of different ways that you can use to get to any one point.

In my personal situation, traffic is a non-issue. I live in Wolseley and work downtown. I have no rivers to cross, and I usually walk to work.

Traffic is a lifestyle choice in Winnipeg, not an economic necessity, as somewhere like Toronto where house+yard=commute. If you want to live somewhere where you don't have to deal with gridlock down Pembina or Waverly, you can. Actually, it's usually cheaper to live where I live and avoid traffic as compared to those swanky new developments upwind of the dump. Go figure.

"you will never need to sit at a light turing left more then one cycle anywhere in winnipeg"

Obviously a lie, there are places in Thunder Bay where it can take more than five cycles to clear an intersection. :rolleyes:

Winnipeg wasn't really "designed" in any way, much of it predates comprehensive urban planning. The French settlers laid out long lots running perpendicular to the rivers and the city simply maintained that because it is easier than removing entire rural road networks like Calgary does. Windsor is the same way, many of their new suburbs actually maintain the grid. The simple fact is to build a freeway in Winnipeg, because it got so big so early, would require the demolition of thousands of structures and the expropriation of thousands of properties to make it possible. Probably why the ring road is so far outside of the city, instead of bisecting it like the ring roads in Regina, Dartmouth and Thunder Bay. The only place where ours runs through the middle of an urban area is through a neighbourhood that, at the time, was sparsely populated.

The real point of the thread was that I dislike the fact that the perimeter is not a freeway when places like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Ontario have many freeways, it just seems embarrassing....

the rest I just basically trailed off onto another subject (the fact that downtown winnipeg needs a more solid residential population)

So where is the money going to come from? to turn the entire thing into a freeway (and lights will be eliminated over the next few years) would require hundreds of millions of dollars. We can't do that all at once. The lights at Saskatchewan will be gone soon as will the lights at Lagimodiere. There will also be a new arrangement where Waverly connects with the perimeter that will eventually be replaced by an overpass structure when the St. Norbert bypass is built. These things take time, but it will happen. As of now, there isn't really a traffic problem on the perimeter.

I'm guessing st.marys and the perimeter will also be upgraded to a interchange eventually after all of these major improvements as it is also yet another major intersection on the trans canada hwy that is not currently an interchange.

Can the government of Canada not help us out a little bit to "catch up" with the rest of the world?

How does one decide whether there is enough traffic to have either a freeway or an 'expressway'?

Look, I'd like a freeway just as much as you, but the reality is that a ) it isn't really a huge deal in the grand scheme of things and b ) Winnipeg and Manitoba already benefit from a large amount of federal money and c ) The perimeter has so far and will continue to see constant improvement over its life. We'll have a freeway (or close to it) some day, but unfortunately, we just have to wait and live with what we have.

The province is spending more money than ever on roads, but it only goes so far.

Meh. I think it's a blessing. Cities function fine without them, but they are useful on rural areas. Be thankful you, like most Canadian cities, don't have a freeway downtown. I've never had a problem in Winnipeg myself, though with road networks. But I don't live down there so it's my experience isn't as accurate.

I am guessing the province only spend the large sums of 'road money' on repaving and repairing its highways?


Maybe it is not a big deal to Manitoba, but to the rest of the world who decides to build freeways, it is?


Yes, I am happy that Winnipeg does not have any downtown Freeways bisecting and taking away from areas that could see urban growth. However, It just seemed to confuse me why other places in Canada can have freeways (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, ect) and Manitoba can not (as the main thing that pops into my head is that we can't afford it. This is when I thought that Canada is a big country and can help out less advantaged provinces to keep proper infustructer in place).

Oh well, I guess it was just a nice thought to imagine a free-flowing road way in manitoba, as I actually enjoy driving many of them (when not super congested, like I have before, and it just becomes a headache:yuck: ).

Just for fun does anyone have any links to the vehicular traffic on Winnipeg’s major routes so they can in fact be compared to what other provinces decided was enough traffic to warrant a 'freeway'?

Uh, no. It's silly to think these things only happen in Winnipeg. Freeways are built after large amount of traffic often times, and are built to alleviate the pressure on city roads and the other highways, but not just in Winnipeg. Many cities don't preplan because there is no way of knowing the traffic patterns in 5, 10, 15, or 20 years. They build when there is demand many times (although not all the time...).

really?...i've never sat through more than two cycles of a light at any time in winnipeg...and that is very rare...

people who complain about traffic in winnipeg have never been anywhere else.

its a myth that freeways solve traffic problems...freeways cause sprawl which only increases traffic...be glad we have no freeways...look what happened the second an underpass was built on kenaston, waverly west, the ikea retail development....pipelines to the burbs cause sprawl.

if you want to live 20kms from where you work, you deserve to sit in traffic....i hope its hot and you have no air conditioning and there is an accident that makes you late for work and you get a ticket at a photo radar intersection and there is a train that you have to wait for and the price of gas doubles and the drive through line at tims is really long and then it snows and the roads are icy so you have to slow down but you still cant stop and you slide into the only tree on your cul de sac but no damage is done because its trunk is only 4" in diameter and it just snapped under your car and you have to park on your driveway because the white door on your attached double car garage is stuck.

i fail to see how removing the few lights on the perimeter would change anything....there is hardly a backlog of traffic there.

the real problem came while sitting in a traffic jam on bishop grandon and driving through south winnipeg's traffic problems which just becomes annoying. The motivation for freeways came from google maps looking at the Maritimes many freeways, as it was more of just "why would they have that when we don't?"


I have actually been to calgary on the deerfoot, when there was no traffic moving at all, and I have seen this type of traffic in Winnipeg as well, obviously not with as many cars though but that is why i wanted to compare for interests sake.


truviking, as for the hateful comments, the reason i live in suburbia is because it was what was affordable at the time. I do not live in a cul de sac, and fail to see your good intentions with these comments.

And yes, in the summer I do enjoy riding my bike, and do travel to and from work by bike every know and than, as well as take the bus every day. What would be even better would be to see a healthy downtown residential population, many bike paths, as well as proper infrastructure. All of this seems to be already happening in Winnipeg, I do not see why this would be so personal to you. You do not have to shove every word of mine down my throat, as many of you seem to enjoy doing. All I was curious about was why the Maritimes spend so much more money on highways, but I guess it is obvious Manitoba is unique in not having freeways and takes pride in this sort of accomplishment and would prefer to have the perimeter stay a at grade expressway. It is fine with me; all I had was simple curiosity.

Although I do feel somewhat bad for the thread title, but couldn't think of anything better.. idk how to change it and if this is the reason so many winnipeggers are offended than please try to look past this before commenting.

A possible thread title could be along the lines of "Winnipeg's Trans-Canada Expressway?"

Manitoba will upgrade its routes as the need develops. There is money being spent on new roads and there is money being spent fixing the new ones, but these things are all very expensive. If you want to keep tabs on what is being done, here is the website:

http://tgs.gov.mb.ca/cts/

Click on roads and bridges and then 2009.

Also, current ongoing projects (though not all are listed because the crews on the ground are sometimes too lazy I suppose):

http://roaddata.gov.mb.ca/map/gmap/map.aspx

It's also important to note that Manitoba had one project that cost a great deal of money that many other places didn't have to worry about it. That particular project also surrounds Winnipeg (well, partly). For the cost of the ditch, we could have turned the perimeter into a freeway.

The Deerfoot in Calgary has some traffic, but other prairie cities like Winnipeg and Edmonton, and the always mentioned Calgary really do not have traffic issues compared to other places. Really.

south bound lag at grasie the left turn light there you can wind up sitting for 5 or more.... but then that spot is has a large incress in traffic the last while and needs the lights riped right out there http://www.google.ca/maps?ie=UTF8&ll...09559&t=h&z=17

Along Memorial Avenue, Fort William Road, and Red River Road in Thunder Bay, it is not uncommon, at least in my experiences on the bus, to have to wait through as many as five light cycles to get through the intersection during rush hour. There are times where buses get so backed up they start bunching, and this is on a suburban route with a 15 minute frequency. Even during light mid-day traffic on Memorial, you frequently have to wait two cycles to cross, especially at its intersection with the Harbour "Expressway" (A four lane undivided road with three lighted intersections within a kilometre of each other and multiple turnoffs to businesses). Turning left off of the Thunder Bay Expressway onto Highway 102 or Red River Road during rush hour can take up to five cycles as well, the left hand turning lane frequently backs up more than 200m during rush hour and on a few occasions has stretched almost half a kilometre. Traffic on Highway 102 and Red River Road frequently back up so badly during rush hour that it causes grid lock in Jumbo Gardens and on Junot Avenue. Some vehicles get stuck on Junot for as much as 10 minutes because of this. There were times when I was living in Jumbo Gardens that the traffic would be backed up right out of the urban area, and considering its population has grown more than 10% since then, I imagine the situation is worse. This isn't a wide-scale thing, it's just at a couple intersections along the busiest roads in the city. The Expressway/102-Red River problem could be alleviated somewhat by forcing some traffic onto John Street, a mile south, but the problem would still exist.

The only solution the province is doing right now is building double turning lanes on the expressway. They expropriated land for Parclos in 1992 or 1993, but that project (which would have turned the entire expressway into a true freeway) was cancelled when the Conservatives were elected. The only interchange planned right now is at a lightly travelled intersection on the edge of town. I have no idea why they chose to build one there. Our highways are just as bad as Manitoba's, if not worse. Many don't even have shoulders yet.

Traffic overall isn't too bad here, and commutes don't suffer too much, but there are choke points in our road infrastructure that I guess are worse than anything Winnipeg experiences. :shrug: The province isn't doing much about it either, I guess because they can't believe we suffer from these traffic problems just as much as Trueviking can't.

if winnipeg had gone ahead and built its vast freeway system it had planned we would not have the exchange!!!!! or the forks!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ummm, and you know this how?

How did you connect those dots?