Quote:
Originally Posted by h0twired
There is NEVER be a rapid transit ROW down Portage unless you do one of the following things.
- Run an LRT down the center of Portage Ave and close most intersections and turn the rest into interchanges or T intersections. Barriers would be placed on each side of the tracks to ensure pedestrians, vehicles and cyclists do not get in the way of the train.
- Run the LRT along the sidewalks and turn the West End and Wolseley streets into cul-de-sacs allowing vehicular access via 1 or 2 streets and building pedestrian overpasses so that you don't have to walk half a kilometer to cross the street. This would also turn Portage Ave into a freeway but probably kill many businesses along the stretch as well. Barriers would also be placed on each side of the tracks to ensure pedestrians and cyclists do not get in the way of the train.
- Run an elevated LRT and cast a permanent shadow on the north side of Portage.
- Run the LRT underground.
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I'm also trying to think of how portage could have an LRT, and an elevated system/ underground is all I could feasibly think of, negating how much $$ that would cost. Maybe one day down the line, but we also have to think about if we're going to be moving towards a million people, then Portage being the way it is, is very important.
Portage is basically 4 lanes either way (8), minus turning lanes and parking lanes, rush hour times...essentially making it 3 proper lanes (6) of continuously flowing traffic either way...and if even one of those lanes is axed, then traffic gets backed up so much.
Its no Toronto, but take out two lanes when there is sewage maintenance, or MTS working some telephone pole or construction or whatever, and its bad enough to make bumper to bumper rush hour in any city not named Toronto or Montreal look much more desirable (its taken me an hour and a half to get home once coming from downtown out west that normally takes 25-30 mins - 2 lanes gone plus traffic lights does that).
Putting in LRT...is there enough space to keep everything as it is? I'm not sure. Then, if LRT had to obey the current traffic set up and lights etc...then what's the point of rapid transit?
The other option would be to take some other route in the city...but again as h0twired said, Winnipeg isnt
entirely a sprawling suburban freeway city a la Edmonton or Calgary. The core of the city, as in the "old parts" of the city don't have much breathing room.
I could easily see LRT somewhere down Bishop or the newer sprawling areas, for sure, but that's because they have so much room to play with that you could add 2 L/BRT lines (dedicated RT corridors) PLUS expand the lanes for future traffic...and still function.
We're moving towards more people, and Portage is already more busy than it used to be even 5 years ago during peak traffic hours. What used to take 20 mins now takes 25...doesn't sound like much of a change, but that's only with a few hundred more cars etc...with the population adding several thousand people in the area. What about when headingly has thousands and thousands more car drivers when we have a million people? Sure sprawl might not happen in the west part of the city as much as the north and the south, where there is more area to play with...
but thats why it makes a) more sense to have RT elsewhere first, and b) perhaps leave portage for buses. Express buses are pretty decent - U of W to Unicity for instance is only 30 mins tops on an express bus.
Making portage smaller while we have more cars on the road...just doesnt make sense.
And I would rather put all the money it would cost to build a western RT line above ground or underground (which would be best for the Peg's winter weather...but way more expensive) and invest it in building RT lines NE, E, SE and S of the city.
People living in the west have much more options to head downtown than people living NE or E do.
The other possibility is to have RT entirely separated from Portage and use another parallel street or something. If that was done over time, people could get used to it eventually. But suddenly introducing something is another story.
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