Perimeter Highway | Winnipeg

[esquire]

^ Ah OK, that rings a bell regarding the construction technique... I couldn't remember if it was going to 6 lanes but it seems like that is off in the distant future.

There are some stretches of the Perimeter that do seem busy enough to justify going to 6 lanes now... the stretch of 101 from 59 to 7 seems like it has almost full-on urban traffic volumes now, as is 59 from 101 to the Birds Hill area. Those seem like a likely candidates for going to 6 lanes, although I'd imagine that won't enter the conversation until the long-overdue 101/59 interchange is built.

[Reignman]

Originally Posted by Cyro

Bummer.

So basically if anybody has an issue with the half-ass way things are done here in Manitoba, they need to keep it to themselves...cause you don't want to hear about it?

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by Reignman

So basically if anybody has an issue with the half-ass way things are done here in Manitoba, they need to keep it to themselves...cause you don't want to hear about it?

It seems so. We have accepted crap and half-assed solutions to everything for so long, such is now the norm. Any mention of it and the apologists will either come at you in full force defence mode or politely tell you that you are wrong and everything is fine.

There is no will here to change anything.

[Cyro]

Originally Posted by Reignman

So basically if anybody has an issue with the half-ass way things are done here in Manitoba, they need to keep it to themselves...cause you don't want to hear about it?

No, you can comment if you like. It's a public forum.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Just to chime in, and I know this has been beaten to death. I just got back from a 16 day road trip across western Canada and USA. MY fucking goodness, Manitoba roads are a complete and utter disaster. The worst roads I've been on that whole 9,500km voyage. What pieces of fucking shit.

We all know the interstate is God compared to our highways. But fuck. I get back to Manitoba late Sunday night. Bump da bump da bump down the highway. Get to 100 and Pembina and could barely find the right turn to take the exit onto EB 100. I made it cause I know. But if you didn't, could be trouble. Now I'm at Lag and 100, taking the eb-nb loop. Bump da bump da bump up the ramp, suspension being hammered with each seam. Then as you get closer to the top, WHAM! Big fucking pothole or something. don't think there was any damage to the car, I don't think. But the car is making a bit of noise now..

The whole trip, no issues, until the last hour of my drive back at home in Manitoba. It's not only embarrassing, but so dangerous... And we want to be a transportation hub. HAHA. I'm all for Manitoba and growing this Province. But seriously Manitoba NEEDS, yes NEEDS, a top notch highway system. Why would anyone want to move a business here when you can't get around without destroying your vehicle. And if your livelihood depends on driving, get the fuck out of here..

Highway 75, 100/101 and the 1 need to be free flowing pretty much everywhere. All the other highways can be upgraded here and there to make them better. It wouldn't take a whole lot, maybe $200M-$300M to make 75 a freeway. You don't need to rebuild the whole thing, just put up diamonds at all the key intersections and you're done. It really is that simple. Morris bypass would be the most expensive part.

As the province and city both want to be known as the trucking capital of Canada you think the first thing they would want to improve would be the roads! 75 south is in terrible condition, #1 east and west needs a lot of work and I can only imagine the condition of roads heading north.

Gotta love the attitude of some of you in here something like: yeah our roads suck, what do you want the province and the party that governs it to do about it, we live here and except mediocrity and you should too!

[Cyro]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

yeah our roads suck, what do you want the province and the party that governs it to do about it, we live here and except mediocrity and you should too!

Ahhh vote them out of power in the upcoming election?
Your suggesting a political solution to our problems. Good. Maybe you've come up with a course of action.

[Reignman]

Originally Posted by Cyro

Ahhh vote them out of power in the upcoming election?
Your suggesting a political solution to our problems. Good. Maybe you've come up with a course of action.

Ya cause everybody here knows rrskylar voted NDP last election.

The problem is there are hundreds of thousands of other voters here who continue to vote the same party in term after term.

[Reignman]

^ however saying that, I am not convinced that it's necessarily a political party issue here in Manitoba that has resulted in road and highway issues. They have been deteriorating since at least the days of Filmon who was PC. I have never voted NDP in my life (and likely never will) but I must admit I am impressed at the level of funding Selinger is at least verbally committing to major highways in the capital region. If Pallister is elected next election will he cancel all the major Selinger infrastructure projects that have not begun? I hope not but he may. That's exactly why I emailed him at least 6 months ago...to see how high highway improvements were on his priority list. I never got an answer.

[Cyro]

Originally Posted by Reignman

The problem is there are hundreds of thousands of other voters here who continue to vote the same party in term after term.

Suggestion: Run for office and change the situation. Move to Political thread. Here >http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...60#post6623060

[drew]

Originally Posted by Riverman

It seems so. We have accepted crap and half-assed solutions to everything for so long, such is now the norm. Any mention of it and the apologists will either come at you in full force defence mode or politely tell you that you are wrong and everything is fine.

There is no will here to change anything.

In the case of my previous "apologist" posts - I think it needed to be pointed out that while our roads suck, it does cost more to do the same thing here. Probably significantly.

You can't shake a stick and make it so. It costs money - which is also in short supply here. Obviously the current governments priorities are in other areas. Maybe the next government will go heavy on infrastructure. But again - some other government supplied service will lose out if money is transferred from one department to the next. Will it be healthcare, education? What are our actual priorities when it comes down to it?

Obviously Joe Public complains about roads here. But do we know that truckers, trucking companies, etc. are kicking up a fuss about roads? Is there an economic argument to be made? That's a voice that may get heard - but if that wheel isn't squeaking, it won't get greased.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by drew

It costs money - which is also in short supply here. Obviously the current governments priorities are in other areas.

Yes, increasing the size of the public service by 5% last year. The money is there, it just isn't being spent on infrastructure.

[roccerfeller]

Originally Posted by Biff

The South Perimeter currently has close to $400 million approved for upgrades in the next 5 years. That does not include the $200-250 million approved for the Headingley Bypass in the next 5 years as well.

My hope is that things will get started right away before this pot of cash potentially dries up. I speak with a high up at MIT Highways regularly and there is no one more eager to get things going than him. The problem now is that they have never had the good fortune of this much money thrown at them and they are now struggling to get things designed and out the door as quickly as possible. He knows how quickly this money could disappear and wants to get the base foundation dirt flying on a number of interchanges on the south Perimeter as early as next year.

Originally Posted by Biff

Reconstruction of 100/Wilkes
New @ 100/McGillivray
New @ 100/330/Brady - a joint interchange
New @ 100/St Mary's
New @ 100/St Anne's

They might not all get constructed this round but they want the base and alignment work started for the interchanges with this round of infrastructure funding. The big push is to get the median widened and new lanes built from Wilkes to Hwy 1 East and all minor access roads closed. 100/McGillivray will likely be built within the next 2 years.

This is great news. 5 year timespan is a good time span too, and as early as next year for perimeter specific projects to start will be great - though that said I'll be a believer when I see that commitment turned into construction. I still feel this set of construction were it to be finished today would be great but its still not up to par with what it should be.

I wonder if how long the Perimeter is takes anything into consideration. Its a really long ring road.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Yes, increasing the size of the public by 5% last year. The money is there, it just isn't being spent on infrastructure.

government priorities. Like I mentioned above.

[original]

I still question why the Perimeter was even made. Why not first focus on the inner ring road? You know, the one that's actually within the city... When the Perimeter was originally built, it was far off away from the city in farm lands. Hell, it's still far off in farm lands in some places. Did they really expect Winnipeg to grow that fast that it would be bursting out of the Perimeter anytime soon?

Always pure stupidity in Manitoba.

Also, whoever painted the new lines on the NE Perimeter on/off ramps at Henderson was obviously smoking crack. Why are the lines on the road always such a clusterfuck and super sloppy?
WHY do they paint them during the DAY when there is tons of traffic? Everyone just drives over the wet paint and smudges the shit out of it.

[cllew]

I wonder what highways department is using for line paint?

City of Winnipeg according to their web site now uses a quick dry alkyd that is heated on the line paint truck to 62 degrees Celsius and dries in about 1 minute for the road lines and paint for the intersections and crosswalks is barricaded as it takes about 20 minutes to dry.

I am guessing the walk behind machines for the intersections don't heat the paint like the road painter does.

Does anybody else remember the days when the Metro Corp and later the city painted the road lines and right behind the line truck was a pickup pulling a long trailer with flashing lights, and two people riding on the back manually placing orange cones on the lines to keep people from driving over the fresh paint.

About 1 hour later a different truck with would come by with riding workers to retrieve the cones that had not been hit or blown off the lines. I never really did figure out who picked up the cones they could not snag while moving. Maybe they had a follow up truck with staff to jump out and get the cones from the odd locations.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by Biff

While doing this the road bed will be constructed to allow future widening to 6 lanes from Roblin Blvd to Hwy 1 East.........I hope that made sense.

I am not sure if the recently redone 100/Assiniboine river crossing was built to accommodate 6 lanes.

South Perimeter up to Wilkes is easier and less expensive to add lanes to at this point. From Wilkes to Portage the Wilkes, Roblin and Portage overpasses and Assinboine Bridge would need major rehabs to handle six lanes of through traffic. Further, the just completed CentrePort overpass looks like it was designed to handle a maximum of four lanes of through traffic.

I wonder if the extra lanes will basically be interchange to interchange merge/exit lanes with a maximum of four through lanes being maintained.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by CoryB

South Perimeter up to Wilkes is easier and less expensive to add lanes to at this point. From Wilkes to Portage the Wilkes, Roblin and Portage overpasses and Assinboine Bridge would need major rehabs to handle six lanes of through traffic. Further, the just completed CentrePort overpass looks like it was designed to handle a maximum of four lanes of through traffic.

The 100/Wilkes interchange is in design right now. It will likely be reconstructed. The geometry of the exit ramps are too tight and dangerous and the bridge deck needs to be replaced. It will be designed to handle 6 lanes.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Biff

The 100/Wilkes interchange is in design right now. It will likely be reconstructed. The geometry of the exit ramps are too tight and dangerous and the bridge deck needs to be replaced. It will be designed to handle 6 lanes.

So an actual reconstruction as opposed to the rehabbing that we've seen at 100/75 and 101/Inkster? The only interchange in Manitoba I can think of that has really been reconstructed in the true sense of the word is 100/Portage, although even there nothing was changed with the interchange itself - just the bridges and some tweaks to the ramps.

I have no idea what kind of structural condition the Wilkes interchange is in, but as a driver I can say that the interchange really does seem obsolete and not up to current standards, which is no surprise considering it was designed as a country-highway interchange a good 50 years ago. Relaxing the tight turns and curves would do wonders there.

But anyway, good news. Thanks for the dose of optimism, Biff!

[njaohnt]

Originally Posted by esquire

I agree. ND is better off given that they received federal money for their major roads (allowing the money that would have gone into routes like I-29 and 95 to go into state highways), and now that this funding may be drying off, well hello oil revenues. Add the fact that ND is considerably smaller than Manitoba and you do have a significantly different situation.

I don't know about the soil and climate details but certainly they benefit from a much different political reality than we have in Manitoba.

But that said, ND's situation doesn't excuse the lack of appropriate transportation infrastructure within the City of Winnipeg itself, where the vast majority of people and traffic in this province are. The Winnipeg CMA is around the 800,000 mark but we arguably have the transportation infrastructure of a city half that size - in addition to highways, rapid transit is conspicuous by its absence too, and even places much smaller than Winnipeg like Kitchener-Waterloo are building proper RT while we twiddle our thumbs.

Don't judge a city's transportation success by the amount of RT, or by transit ridership. Walk Score says that Winnipeg has better transit than Edmonton, Calgary, and many other cities with rapid transit.

[roccerfeller]

Originally Posted by njaohnt

Don't judge a city's transportation success by the amount of RT, or by transit ridership. Walk Score says that Winnipeg has better transit than Edmonton, Calgary, and many other cities with rapid transit.

Where rapid transit succeeds is moving large amounts of people quickly and frequently over long distances. Given a better walkability score, rapid transit would only add to this. Winnipeg may have a better walkscore but that site does take things such as the number of ways one can walk somewhere into account and the distances too. Edmonton and more-so Calgary are more spread out than Winnipeg, whereas Winnipeg is a much more dense city. This is important when considering why walkscore gives a better rating to Winnipeg. For the most part, it makes sense especially in the urban areas but Edmonton and Calgary also have more suburban areas which contributes to their lower walk-score. Further, in a city such as Calgary, there are less routes (more defined paths) or ways to get to a destination (this is true in car as well) which walk score's system takes into account. So given Winnipeg's density and more pedestrian friendly routes, rapid transit would only improve that walkscore further.

I agree that one cannot judge transportation success solely by the amount of RT, but Winnipeg would be better served with a rapid transit system in place than with no rapid transit system in place. Put another way: could you imagine Calgary's walkscore if it didn't have rapid transit? Yikes.

I do agree with esquire regarding general automobile infrastructure, which is an area Winnipeg could do with upgrades to move traffic more efficiently. The thing with the perimeter highway is that if it was more akin to Anthony Henday in Edmonton, it would move traffic safely and more efficiently (better and safer merging lanes, street lights all around for night time driving aid, no awkward left turns when going ~100km/hr in the faster lane, no slowing 100km/hr traffic suddenly with stop lights which could cause unnecessary intersection collisions, maybe even de-icers for the bridges too, etc...)