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  #41  
Old Posted Aug 3, 2009, 7:15 AM
VanExPat VanExPat is offline
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I agree with whoever said that not having a freeway is 347th on a list of winnipeg's problems. The perimeter could definately do with some extra cash being pumped into it, but ultimately why does it matter if its a "freeway" or not?

Not to jump down your throat UrbanPlanerr, but this strikes me as another case of Winnipegers feeling inadequate and latching on to some kind of "big city item" we lack as the cause. A perimeter Freeway wont suddenly make us a thriving metropolis.

Winnipeg has the deck stacked against it in many ways, but if we just focused on playing to its strengths, and stopped constantly comparing ourselves to calgary or vancouver, etc. etc., we'd be much better off.
     
     
  #42  
Old Posted Aug 3, 2009, 7:35 AM
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I agree with Urban Planner.. Winnipeg's highway system is nearly non-existant. This has been possible primarily due to the high volume corridores like Portage ave, Main Street and Pembina Hwy. As the city continues to grow in population and industrial infrastructure the city expressway system and the main highways flowing into the city will need to be upgraded significantly. The designation as the only primary inland port in Canada will be the driver of many upgrades.

Its not even a mater of weither it will happen ... it is happening and will continue to happen to much larger extent in the future. Chief Peguis expansion, Route 90 widening from Sterling Lyon to the St.James Bridge, a new expressway through the new Centreport, the planned extension of the Charleswood Parkway, the planned extention of Route 90 to the Perimetre and eventual link to Hyw 75, the planned Headingly bypass... ect ect. As the city draws towards a million people there will be many more expanded roadways and interchanges to come.

Yes Winnipeg has a ways to go to catch up to many other cities in transportation infrastructure, but things will be changing in the years to come. Eliminating traffic lights on the Perimetre will be a great achievement, but I think the inner ring road (Route 90, Bishop, Lag and Chief Peguis) will be the higher focus, as it handles higher traffic levels.

I also don't buy into the lack of funding theory, as Manitoba has more then enough money to spend on a vast array of over budget projects. With proper management Manitoba would be well on its way to having much better infrastructure.
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  #43  
Old Posted Aug 3, 2009, 11:18 AM
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oh I see it's ok to whine about roads but nothing else Winnipeg related. Oh heck why didn't ya say so!!!
     
     
  #44  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 12:40 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by newflyer View Post
I also don't buy into the lack of funding theory, as Manitoba has more then enough money to spend on a vast array of over budget projects. With proper management Manitoba would be well on its way to having much better infrastructure.
Name one over-budget project by government other than the floodway. Manitoba has proper management, and we have improving infrastructure. It took this province a long time to recover from what the last two governments did. Lets never turn back there. Right now we have improving healthcare, improving infrastructure, and a growing economy. What more could we possibly ask for?
     
     
  #45  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 12:47 AM
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I mean, here's the thing. Money doesn't grown on trees, and there is more than one priority. Do we want the Siemens Institute, or an overpass? I know which one I want. Do we want a new heart centre, or an overpass? I know which one we should want. Do we want a strategy to further reduce crime in Winnipeg, or an overpass?

We're not spending more than ever on infrastructure, but it's a constant balance. We can't just build whatever we want. We have one of the few fiscally responsible governments left in the country, and I'm more than a bit thankful for that.
     
     
  #46  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 3:08 AM
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Originally Posted by UrbanPlannerr View Post
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.
hateful comments?!...yikes thin skin.

my coments were made in humour to emphasize the point that i could not care less how long you have to sit in traffic to get from your suburban house to wherever you work...if it is a problem for you, move closer to where you work....dont ask the rest of us to pay for a larger road to solve your problem....the costs of sprawl on the city, in urban quality, civic finances and service construction / maintenance are not sustainable and i for one do not want to subsidize your wish to live in the far flung edges of the city....

the longer it takes you and other suburbanites to get to work the better it is for the city....maybe next time you buy a house you will make proximity to the centre a priority....building a bigger road so people can live farther and farther way is not the solution....enabling sprawl is short sighted and in the long run causes far more problems than it solves....i can think of much better ways of spending civic money than building you more roads, schools, water/waste services, snow clearing etc.

freeways do not create better cities...in fact, its generally an inverse relationship...the worst cities on earth in respect to urban form are in the united states....coincidentally the nation with the most freeways.

canadian cities in general are more compact, higher density (twice as dense) and more sustainable because they have fewer freeways than their american counterparts.....it is an absolute fact that freeways cause sprawl....there is a direct relationship to a city's footprint and its freeway system....i will let you research on your own why sprawl is bad for cities.

vancouver is very often touted as one of the best examples of urban form in north america....because it has no freeways...compare it to seattle and you will see the difference.


Quote:
Originally Posted by UrbanPlannerr View Post
I'm guessing you are against the city expanding in size?, thus where would the more proper place to put the new ikea be, downtown?
you guessed right....i dont think ikea should be downtown, but the 1.5 million square feet of retail that will accompany it and the 8000 surface parking stalls, is nothing but damaging to the city...it only serves to decentralize it further....it is a snowball effect...you build the underpass, and waverly west is more viable, then millions of square feet of retail are built to service it, then we need an underpass at waverly, which causes yet more development even further out...

as the city grows in area, disproportionatly to its growth in population, tax dollars are stretched even thinner to provide all the services the suburbs expect....it is not sustainable, financially, urbanistically or environmentally.

simply put, if one of my tax dollars paid to service 10 square feet of city area (roads, snow clearing, schools, garbage collection etc), but as the city expands and becomes less dense with fewer people to pay for a larger area, that one dollar now has to pay to service 15 square feet, either my taxes are going to go up or my services will decrease....if we can get more people to live in the same area, splitting the cost between more taxpayers, then that dollar might need to pay for only 7 square feet and services will improve or taxes can go down.

are you trying to make the argument that big box retail development is good for the city too?


next time you are at mcnally buy this book:

http://www.amazon.ca/Death-Life-Grea.../dp/067974195X

Last edited by trueviking; Aug 4, 2009 at 4:49 AM.
     
     
  #47  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 3:29 AM
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consider the built up area of calgary compared to that of winnipeg....with 2/3 of the population you can fit 2 1/2 winnipeg's inside the footprint of calgary....this is due in part to the freeway system that has enabled sprawl in the larger city.

     
     
  #48  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 3:36 AM
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Comparing Sprawl In U.S. And Canadian Cities
Author: Patrick Condon
http://www.planetizen.com/node/132

A comparison of American and Canadian cities demonstrates that sprawl in has less to do with the American Dream than with the influence the highway, oil and auto lobby has on US transportation policy.

Americans are famous for debating issues without reference to foreign precedents. The sprawl debate is no exception. Yet a country exists that grew up with the US, has a similar government, a similar standard of living, similar level of education, even generally similar patterns of immigration. Canada is that country. I moved here in 1992 from my native US. During that period I have become more and more convinced that Canada has something to offer as the US debates the pressing issues of affordability, congestion, pollution, and equity -- all issues that are intimately tied to urban form and sprawl.

Canadian cities are, on average, twice as dense as their American counterparts, with 14.2 persons per hectare in the U.S. compared to 28.5 in Canada. Canadians own nearly as many cars as Americans, but drive them about half as much per year. Consequently, their per capita contribution to global warming is half that of their American counterparts. Canadians are also about 2.7 times more likely to take transit than are Americans.

Too often Americans, when asked to explain these differences, say its because the US has a different culture. Americans are pioneers and need a lot of space. Americans have a special love for the automobile and the freedom it provides. The truly courageous will point to race as a factor - red-lining and fear impelling white flight to suburban areas. They say that Canada, which does not have the history of white vs. black strife, cannot be compared to the US. Finally, those with an even deeper understanding of policy matters will point out that neither the mortgage deduction nor cheap Fannie Mae loans were available to Canadians, factors that dramatically increased homeownership in the suburbs.

While all of the above appear to have played a role, we suggest they are all overemphasized. In our analysis of the difference (PDF, 2 MB) between the two countries it appears that the answer is far simpler. As James Carvelle might say: it's the highways stupid!

Why do we say this? For one thing, because the huge difference in city form itemized above did not exist prior to WWII. Prior to 1940, US and Canadian cities seem identical. A comparative analysis of urban neighbourhoods built before this date show very similar patterns of density and land use. Even the size of the blocks and average parcel sizes are the same. It appears that transit, the streetcar in particular, was the major force controlling city form in both countries. The "streetcar city" pattern is one where trolley car arterials are accessible within a five or six minute walk of most homes while commercial and jobs areas are arrayed linearly along these arterials. Whatever cultural differences existed between Canada and the US at that time -- whether it was "love of freedom" or the "American Dream" -- seems to have had very little influence on city form.

So what changed? Why did the two countries diverge so markedly? It appears that highway construction was the major impetus. While Fannie Mae, mortgage deductions, and race were important, highway construction seems to be by far the most important stimulus to sprawl. To illustrate this point: Canadian cities typically spent far fewer dollars per capita on freeways, but Canadian cities that spent more heavily on highway construction exhibit similar reductions in density and increases in auto comparable to US counterparts-- even without the problems of race and the inducements of mortgage interest deductions.

Conversely, certain US cities avoided the more serious consequences of sprawl during this same period. Portland and Seattle have not seen the kind of wholesale abandonment that still eats away older St. Louis neighbourhoods. Interestingly, Portland and Seattle have only .5 meters of freeway lane per capita, at the lowest end of US cities studied. St. Louis residents get twice as many freeway miles per capita, the highest of all cities studied. In fact, freeway lane miles per capita have been steadily increasing in St. Louis during the same decades that neighbourhood abandonment and urban decay accelerated

Our analysis also suggests that if you really want to move asset value from center cites to the suburbs build highways. In Vancouver, a city with no freeway lanes at all and with a paltry .25 meters of freeway per capita, pre WWII neighbourhoods have seen an average increase of 300% in inflation-adjusted dollars. Similar increases accrue in Portland and Seattle, particularly during periods where the amount of freeway lane per capita was dropping. Meanwhile homeowners in St. Louis appear to have been on the wrong end of a capital value flight to the suburbs, an asset flight that seems to us to have been induced by overbuilding highways. Parcels in inner city areas of St. Louis have declined by 30% in inflation adjusted dollars over the 40 year period of intense highway building.

While our analysis is far from conclusive (and indeed, given the degree of interrelation between transportation, land use, market forces and so forth, a completely satisfactory isolation of the influence of one factor or another may not even be possible) it does show a strong correlation between the amount of highways miles per capita and urban land values in older "trolley car" neighbourhoods. We also believe that the cross border comparison allows us to separate the influence of highway construction from that of race, home financing, and tax laws. Finally, we believe that our analysis, while preliminary, suggests that sprawl in the US has less to do with the American Dream than with the influence the highway, oil and auto lobby has on US transportation policy.
     
     
  #49  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 12:06 PM
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Excellent posts trueviking...
     
     
  #50  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 7:46 PM
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Great post above, viking. I hadn't really considered, to that degree, of how freeways can encourage suburban sprawl.

Quote:
Originally Posted by trueviking View Post
you guessed right....i dont think ikea should be downtown, but the 1.5 million square feet of retail that will accompany it and the 8000 surface parking stalls, is nothing but damaging to the city...it only serves to decentralize it further....it is a snowball effect...you build the underpass, and waverly west is more viable, then millions of square feet of retail are built to service it, then we need an underpass at waverly, which causes yet more development even further out...
Myself, I think that the 150,000 sq feet of 'business park' that will be part of the Ikea project is the most notable threat to downtown, and is a sprawl encourager.

I had wrote before that the proliferation of 'business parks' will be bad for downtown. Topping my list of negativity around business parks:

a) encourage new business opening in or moving to Winnipeg to locate out in the suburbs at the business parks.
b) encourage current downtown businesses to move to the suburban 'business parks,' you know... "because it's safer and the parking is free."
c) encourage workers in said business parks to move closer to work in the burbs, rather than consider living more central.

What upsets me greatly about this whole IKEA stuff, is mainly how Katz & Co. totally bent over backwards for the project as a whole... the project which, of course, includes the 'business park' component.

I highly doubt that the IKEA people would've folded the project for Winnipeg if our Mayor grew a pair of balls and said "no to your business park." Really don't think that the project would be contingent on that. If the land was already zoned as such that a business park could go up, that might be one thing (though I still wouldn't be happy and would want it rezoned so it couldn't happen), but for Katz & Co. to go out of their way to make it happen is extremely counter-productive for our downtown revitalization.

The creation of suburban 'business parks' is, IMO, one of the greatest threats to downtown revitalization (after crime). I mean, the 'business park' for IKEA... 150,000 sq feet... that might be a decent 10-15 floor building (?) in downtown where possibly hundreds of people would work. Damn it!

Recently, I studied that Tuxedo Business Park... the sorts of business in there isn't neighbourhood 'front-line' stores (bakeries, autopac dealers, etc, etc, etc). By far, most were the types of business you would want to see located downtown, in a tower. (ie: high finance, software development, etc).

(150,000 sq foot source)
     
     
  #51  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 7:58 PM
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The business park was part of the developers project correct?

I doubt IKEA cares either way what accompanies it's store.
     
     
  #52  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 8:02 PM
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You could be, and probably are, correct... I had just assumed that IKEA was the developer of the whole thing. Either way, I doubt that the whole project was contingent on the business park aspect... and my point still stands that Katz & Co. should've said "No!" to the business park.
     
     
  #53  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 8:39 PM
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IKEA is just a tenant in the development. They are building where they are because of the land needed and access to significant roadways. They have no say in what else happens and they are fine if they are the sole tenant. If you want to blame anyone for the development around them blame the developer Fairweather Properties Inc for the size of Tuxedo Yards. They are capitalizing on the drawing power that IKEA will have to make the biggest development possible thinking every one would want to jump on the IKEA bandwagon.
     
     
  #54  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 8:43 PM
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Good to know, thanks.

I still blame Katz & Co. though, for allowing the development to happen with the business park. Fairweather obviously isn't responsible for a larger vision of Winnipeg & downtown development... Katz is. Katz & Co. could have said "No!" to the business park component. My original point still stands, though now I know that IKEA isn't the developer, it still doesn't change anything.
     
     
  #55  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 9:04 PM
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Sorry for dragging this further off topic, but wouldn't the new IKEA development also endanger the new Bomber's stadium?

My thinking there is that this new development is going to suck any potential new tenants from the Polo Park area south to be with IKEA. Since the new stadium deal partially hinges on selling the existing stadium and property for future development, the less it's worth... well you get the picture.
     
     
  #56  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 9:19 PM
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^^^ That is a good point and i have thought that myself. How many more big flashy retailers are there out there that Winnipeg doesn't yet have and would be a draw for a new retail centre? It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
     
     
  #57  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 9:52 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drew View Post
The business park was part of the developers project correct?

I doubt IKEA cares either way what accompanies it's store.
they care very much who is beside them, how far away they are, the direction those other retailers face, how far they are from the street, how much parking they have....their traffic patterns, their typical merchant income level etc.

i cant go into the details that much but let's just say that ikea has strong vested interest in the entire development....it is not a business park...it is 1.5 million square feet of retail development....its like kenaston and mcgillvray on steroids....every retailer you can imagine will be there....i wish i could name them for you...you would be amazed....there will be no point to going to minneapolis anymore to shop.
     
     
  #58  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 10:07 PM
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^ well at least my wife will be happy. I'm sure "bath and body works" will be in there somewhere.
     
     
  #59  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 10:13 PM
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there is no business park associated with the project...the list of retailers reads like portage avenue circa 1974...its quite depressing.
     
     
  #60  
Old Posted Aug 4, 2009, 11:59 PM
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Last edited by UrbanPlannerr; Aug 5, 2009 at 12:19 AM.
     
     
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