Winnipeg Roads & Infrastructure

[plrh]

Originally Posted by buzzg

The Wolseley neighbourhood AT upgrades are on hold until COVID clears up. The city needs normal traffic levels in order to do proper modelling, and there's no traffic right now. Seems like this may push things back a year as we're likely not going to be back to normal traffic levels til fall, if that.

On a somewhat related note, the closing of river-adjacent roads to motorized vehicles has been awful for cycling. It's like trying to ride through Polo Park on Wellington Crescent. I like to complain.

I think the decrease in car traffic would have been enough to bring people out. Just because it's closed to cars doesn't mean it's a sidewalk. I had a number of near-misses.

I'm not being entirely serious.

[buzzg]

Frankly the city needs to widen and pave the median pathway on Wellington, the gravel is brutal. Bad for road bikes, always flooding in spring or after rains. More people would be walking on it now if it wasn't all muddy and wet.

Then, but it an actual AT path/two-way bike lane along Wellington east of Academy. There's so much room. Cars speed down that stretch all the time and for a street that is supposed to be a primary bike route, it's so dangerous.

[bomberjet]

The Cities AT budget is basically zero. So don't expect anything to happen.

[buzzg]

Anyone know if the River-Assiniboine AT bridge is close enough to being "shovel ready" to get some stimulus funding to push it forward, maybe along with some of the other proposed AT bridges?

[bomberjet]

Haven't heard a peep.

Per my previous post, looking at budget documents. AT funding is near zero. ~$1.5 million per year budgeted for the next 4 years. They'd need to make a splash with new funding announced for these bigger projects.

Not sure what the status of the design is at though.

[headhorse]

^ the city was also offered funding from the Winnipeg Foundation for the bridge and denied it. I don't think it's anywhere on their current plans.. the Wolseley/Westminster plan was also stopped (which I believe was supposed to be starting construction this summer) despite years of surveying and planning.

meanwhile there are cyclists all over sidewalks because there are not enough bike lanes

[Biff]

The thing with the Winnipeg Foundation grant, it was for a couple of million if I can remember. The city turned it down because the price of the project is around $39 million. So even if the grant was for $2mil that still leaves the City short about $37mil.

[headhorse]

imo that bridge never made that much sense, especially for the price. you could easily reconfigure the Osborne street bridge to have the bike lanes protected and on the same side, same thing with main st... i'm sure an addition along the midtown bridge could be built for less as well. I guess the issue for osborne has always been the connection going south, but the city needs to abandon Osborne as a commuter street because it is killing the neighbourhood.

[bomberjet]

$39 million????? That sounds crazy insane high.. I guess it's for a landmark structure ting and a bunch of park upgrades. But damn.. $40 mil for an AT bridge seems like low priority.

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

$39 million????? That sounds crazy insane high.. I guess it's for a landmark structure ting and a bunch of park upgrades. But damn.. $40 mil for an AT bridge seems like low priority.

It absolutely would be a low priority. In fact, you can find the prioritized list of the City's infrastructure projects here: https://www.winnipeg.ca/infrastructu...-Plan-2020.pdf

I don't even think this one is on that list.

[bomberjet]

Ah yes. It is there at number 39 out of 45. $39 million big ones. Date is 2023. Wasn't listed in the budget docs though. We'll see if funding can be scrounged up over the next couple years.

For context, they have future rapid transit corridors needing $1 billion in 2023......

....


hahahhahahahahahhahahahahha

Arlington bridge replacement is this year for $310 mil. So ya.

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Ah yes. It is there at number 39 out of 45. $39 million big ones. Date is 2023. Wasn't listed in the budget docs though. We'll see if funding can be scrounged up over the next couple years.

For context, they have future rapid transit corridors needing $1 billion in 2023......

....


hahahhahahahahahhahahahahha

Arlington bridge replacement is this year for $310 mil. So ya.

Opps, my bad. You are right, it is on the list. But yeah, just because a project is on that list and has a "start time" penciled in, doesn't mean it's actually funded. The majority of the spend in that list is actually unfunded.

It's more-so to give people and elected officials an idea of what needs to be done and when, and to also paint a picture of how bad the maintenance backlog is and how little funding there is available to maintain things.

[headhorse]

if the city got rid of the terrible right hand turn lane in front of the liquor mart, you could have a bi-directional protected lane running along the west side of Osborne St and the bridge to the Assiniboine AT, connecting with another bi-directional lane on River that connected to Wellington and further east to Main and Donald St improved connections.

[BuildUpWpg]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

It absolutely would be a low priority. In fact, you can find the prioritized list of the City's infrastructure projects here: https://www.winnipeg.ca/infrastructu...-Plan-2020.pdf

I don't even think this one is on that list.

Wow, there is not one sexy project is that top 10 list. Most people wouldn't see any one those things. And what's this $150 million for water meter replacement??? That's crazy! I think the project that would most appreciated by the citizens of Winnipeg (especially for south and west areas of the city) is the Kenaston one FINALLY getting going.

Imagine what could be done with the active transportation network with the money instead of water meter replacement and transit garage replacement???

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by BuildUpWpg

Wow, there is not one sexy project is that top 10 list. Most people wouldn't see any one those things. And what's this $150 million for water meter replacement??? That's crazy! I think the project that would most appreciated by the citizens of Winnipeg (especially for south and west areas of the city) is the Kenaston one FINALLY getting going.

Imagine what could be done with the active transportation network with the money instead of water meter replacement and transit garage replacement???

Decades of property tax freezes, decreases, and then marginal increases around the rate of inflation means Winnipeg doesn't get to do sexy projects. There is such a massive deficit in existing infrastructure and maintenance that any new money is typically earmarked for taking care of what we already have, not expanding our footprint.

The main outlier is the North End sewage treatment plant, but that project needs to 100% get done ASAP because of regulatory provisions put in place by the Province and the fact that Winnipeg won't be able to add more people and businesses in 5 years if we don't expand it since it's near capacity.

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by headhorse

^ the city was also offered funding from the Winnipeg Foundation for the bridge and denied it. I don't think it's anywhere on their current plans.. the Wolseley/Westminster plan was also stopped (which I believe was supposed to be starting construction this summer) despite years of surveying and planning.

meanwhile there are cyclists all over sidewalks because there are not enough bike lanes

This was only "paused" as the last step before construction was traffic modelling, but there's been no traffic to model due to COVID. Possible it still happens this year now that we're opening things ridiculously early. Only thing that might still be an issue is schools aren't resuming so not sure if they'll want to do the models with that whole pattern of traffic missing, which is a lot in that area.

Originally Posted by BuildUpWpg

Wow, there is not one sexy project is that top 10 list. Most people wouldn't see any one those things. And what's this $150 million for water meter replacement??? That's crazy! I think the project that would most appreciated by the citizens of Winnipeg (especially for south and west areas of the city) is the Kenaston one FINALLY getting going.

Imagine what could be done with the active transportation network with the money instead of water meter replacement and transit garage replacement???

I'd wager a bet against this, that most people in the city don't care about this and don't want to spend $500m on it. There's nothing sexy about it, and it's serving SW Winnipeg which according to many (and somewhat accurately, for various reasons) has had more than its fair share of new infrastructure projects recently.

I personally think it's a huge waste of money. It's barely going to make a difference with all those traffic lights. Just repave it and add in some proper turn lanes where there aren't any. An extra through-lane isn't going to fix a damn thing. I'd honestly rather they spend $1b on it and add some sort of (half?) interchange at the major crossings. Or just focus on extending William Clement and tell Marty Morantz to F off.

[BuildUpWpg]

Originally Posted by buzzg

This was only "paused" as the last step before construction was traffic modelling, but there's been no traffic to model due to COVID. Possible it still happens this year now that we're opening things ridiculously early. Only thing that might still be an issue is schools aren't resuming so not sure if they'll want to do the models with that whole pattern of traffic missing, which is a lot in that area.



I'd wager a bet against this, that most people in the city don't care about this and don't want to spend $500m on it. There's nothing sexy about it, and it's serving SW Winnipeg which according to many (and somewhat accurately, for various reasons) has had more than its fair share of new infrastructure projects recently.

I personally think it's a huge waste of money. It's barely going to make a difference with all those traffic lights. Just repave it and add in some proper turn lanes where there aren't any. An extra through-lane isn't going to fix a damn thing. I'd honestly rather they spend $1b on it and add some sort of (half?) interchange at the major crossings. Or just focus on extending William Clement and tell Marty Morantz to F off.

Truthfully the thing that is most meaningful about this project is the AT paths this brings with it, another step towards linking the Bishop Grandin Greenway with the Polo Park area. It would become the largest continuous pathway in the city. Ya, I agree, just repave Kenaston, upgrade St James Bridge, and put in those pathways. But I disagree that upgrading Kenaston only benefits SW Winnipeg. It's benefits half ALL of western half of Winnipeg since Route 90 is really the only continuous corridor (that doesn't go through downtown) from perimeter to perimeter in the city.

[WildCake]

Originally Posted by BuildUpWpg

Truthfully the thing that is most meaningful about this project is the AT paths this brings with it, another step towards linking the Bishop Grandin Greenway with the Polo Park area. It would become the largest continuous pathway in the city. Ya, I agree, just repave Kenaston, upgrade St James Bridge, and put in those pathways. But I disagree that upgrading Kenaston only benefits SW Winnipeg. It's benefits half ALL of western half of Winnipeg since Route 90 is really the only continuous corridor (that doesn't go through downtown) from perimeter to perimeter in the city.

Don't forget Lagimodiere as a continuous thoroughfare.

[BuildUpWpg]

Originally Posted by WildCake

Don't forget Lagimodiere as a continuous thoroughfare.

Oh right. The eastern north/south corridor.

[bomberjet]

Weren't a bunch of houses already demolished along Kenaston. Not sure if it was for the widening or just related to the barracks thing. Maybe a bit of both.