Quote:
Originally Posted by NewIreland
Why has getting rid of two lanes on Portage and building a massive LRT line down the center never been put on the table? The fact that Winnipeg is still dragging their feet on this issue and standing around while every other city over 500k is building a modern transit system is an embarrassment.
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They plan to make Portage Avenue and Main St North of Portage run BRT down the centre.
Here's the rest of the rapid transit plan for reference.
One thing to note though is that the dashed lines are just where the line runs and are not dedicated infrastructure. Here's what just the dedicated infrastructure looks like.
Just estimating here but that's about 33km of dedicated rapid transit infrastructure (13km for Portage, 11.2km from Marion to Fernbank, 6km from Higgins to KP, and 2.5km for U of M to St. Vital) and 21 or so km of transit priority that will only cost about $1.1 billion. For 54km that would make the cost $20 million/km. If we were just calculated the dedicated infrastructure that would be $33 million/km. In the world of transit this cost/km is remarkably cheap and will guarantee that the transit lines will be profitable.
How does this compare to our contemporary Canadian counterparts that are building LRT you say? Great question because Hamilton and Quebec are going the LRT route. These are our 2 closest Canadian metros in terms of population and Hamilton is going to be constructing a 14km LRT costing a nonsensical $3.4 billion or $242 million/km and the feds are providing $1.7 billion in funding. The Quebec LRT is a bit more reasonable as it is 23km but still costs $3 billion or $130 million/km and will receive $1.2 billion in funding from the federal government. Even the Valley line Southeast Extension in Edmonton will be 13km and cost $1.8B or $138 million/km. Even the Southwest Transitway that was 11.2 costed about $560 million or exactly $50 million/km.
Essentially cities that are the same size as us but are arguably less prominent in the national stage (barring Edmonton) are receiving funding from the federal government that is equivalent to the cost of our whole rapid transit project. If we were to get equivalent funding we could probably make the Grant line and the St. Mary's line fully separated with change to spare for McPhillips and Henderson.
My final point is why would we need to incur additional costs for purchasing trains, building rail lines, and cables for the LRT when all it would take for a BRT is to repurpose the road by adding a small curb between busses and vehicles? not to mention we get our busses from New Flyer who are not only headquartered here but manufacture their busses here. That means a lot of the money invested in BRT expansion will stay in Winnipeg and jobs will be created within the province outside of whatever jobs are needed for the construction of this project. Not to mention just how much we would save from transportation costs would make this the ideal move.
I understand that LRT might induce more demand, but viewing the current transit-oriented developments throughout the city I can say the Southwest Transitway more then gets the job done. If I have to be honest Winnipeg might have actually devised one of the most economically feasible rapid transit plans I have ever seen.
Do you truly believe an LRT would be better for the city?
On a side note, nothing is gonna happen until at least the election is over this year.