Winnipeg | Osborne Village & Corydon area

[biguc]

Originally Posted by EdwardTH

This criteria isn't ever deemed necessary for other infrastructure projects. Is the Waverly underpass going to generate $100 million in new tax revenue at the corner of Taylor & Waverly? Because from what I can see it's the exact same strip mall and Shindico office that were there before. Everyone likes to call for overpasses and interchanges on the perimeter or to create an inner ring road - I've never seen anyone bother to demonstrate how those things would generate enough tax revenue to pay for themselves. The CPT extension is also a money pit if you look at it that way but we will probably forge ahead with those while the inner city continues to crumble.

I'm even pitching a free-flowing stretch of road! This shouldn't be some polarizing, war-on-cars idea. I'd expect this to be a slam-dunk, win-win solution for SW Winnipeg drivers and residents of Corydon and Osborne.

[xubiqtss]

Here's another easy win that would involve no heavy infrastructure changes:

May to September Osborne Street is closed to traffic from River to Pembina. Patios, vendors, pedestrians, etc.

Ever been to Montreal in the summer? They close some of the busiest streets in the city for expressly this reason and it fucking rules.
For some god forsaken reason Winnipeg can no longer even do this for one day.

The Biz needs to get it together and do this yesterday.

https://www.mtl.org/en/experience/st...n-only-streets

[lotw_wpg]

Originally Posted by xubiqtss

Here's another easy win that would involve no heavy infrastructure changes:

May to September Osborne Street is closed to traffic from River to Pembina. Patios, vendors, pedestrians, etc.

Ever been to Montreal in the summer? They close some of the busiest streets in the city for expressly this reason and it fucking rules.
For some god forsaken reason Winnipeg can no longer even do this for one day.

The Biz needs to get it together and do this yesterday.

https://www.mtl.org/en/experience/st...n-only-streets

Yes this, I love when Montreal does this. Let’s try it out. Test it out one year as a trial run and see how it goes. Revert it back to a road for October to April, etc. I see this as a big W. I get that traffic will suck for those months, but let’s try something new.

[thebasketballgeek]

Not just Montréal. Here’s what Rue St Jean in Quebéc City looked like this weekend with a pedestrian only street. It will be pedestrian only until Mid October…



Québec City also plans to make 5 streets pedestrian only for certain times of the year during the summer. Can you believe that Winnipeg is actually a larger city with more people after looking at a picture like this?

[bomberjet]

Spent 2 months in Montreal about a year ago. The open streets were awesome. We loved it. Montreal is light years ahead of Winnipeg in all aspects, for obvious reasons.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

And how would we pay for this $500 million luxury? That area generates $10 million/year in property tax. Even if this massively increased the vibrancy and beauty of the area, doubling the assessment base over night, it would take a minimum of 50 years for that project to pay for itself.

This is why we can't have nice things. Infrastructure costs are too high and taxes are too low relatively speaking.

^This.

However, even if Winnipeg had money to burn, they would manage to mess up any project. After the city decided it would be a "great idea" to build Phase II of the BRT away from the high density areas of Pembina, into the suburban Parker Lands, I gave up in terms of the city ever doing anything useful in terms of pedestrians or transit riders.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by xubiqtss

Here's another easy win that would involve no heavy infrastructure changes:

May to September Osborne Street is closed to traffic from River to Pembina. Patios, vendors, pedestrians, etc.

Ever been to Montreal in the summer? They close some of the busiest streets in the city for expressly this reason and it fucking rules.
For some god forsaken reason Winnipeg can no longer even do this for one day.

The Biz needs to get it together and do this yesterday.

https://www.mtl.org/en/experience/st...n-only-streets

It would be a great idea to close Osborne Street from Confusion Corner to the Osborne Bridge on weekends from May Long weekend to Labour Day Weekend, but I doubt it ever happens.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by EdwardTH

This criteria isn't ever deemed necessary for other infrastructure projects. Is the Waverly underpass going to generate $100 million in new tax revenue at the corner of Taylor & Waverly? Because from what I can see it's the exact same strip mall and Shindico office that were there before. Everyone likes to call for overpasses and interchanges on the perimeter or to create an inner ring road - I've never seen anyone bother to demonstrate how those things would generate enough tax revenue to pay for themselves. The CPT extension is also a money pit if you look at it that way but we will probably forge ahead with those while the inner city continues to crumble.

I have an idea:



TOLLWAYS!

If people want to commute by crossing the Moray Bridge, Bishop Grandin Bridge, either Perimeter Bridge, or even make the whole Perimeter a tollway once it is upgraded to limited access highway, I am all for making people pay extra to commute. Paying to use highways from outlying suburb to outlying suburb may encourage people to spend more time in their community, or at least increase the density.

[bomberjet]

^ Can you imagine the outrage. It'd be a good incentive to get people to use transit.

[WpgRocksDude]

Originally Posted by xubiqtss

Here's another easy win that would involve no heavy infrastructure changes:

May to September Osborne Street is closed to traffic from River to Pembina. Patios, vendors, pedestrians, etc.

Ever been to Montreal in the summer? They close some of the busiest streets in the city for expressly this reason and it fucking rules.
For some god forsaken reason Winnipeg can no longer even do this for one day.

The Biz needs to get it together and do this yesterday.

https://www.mtl.org/en/experience/st...n-only-streets

The Biz wants this for Osborne just as much as anybody. Though the city's perceived value of Osborne as a traffic artery makes any proposal that hinders traffic a guaranteed rejection. All of the Osborne redesign talk I've heard has efficient traffic flow as a top priority, made requisite by the city.

[ColdRain&Snow]

Originally Posted by WpgRocksDude

The Biz wants this for Osborne just as much as anybody. Though the city's perceived value of Osborne as a traffic artery makes any proposal that hinders traffic a guaranteed rejection. All of the Osborne redesign talk I've heard has efficient traffic flow as a top priority, made requisite by the city.

I've talked to the BIZ before about closing Osborne St for Saturday evenings during the summer. The response that I got was pretty much that the BIZ had talked to the City about it before and that Public Works felt it was too much work to redirect the traffic.

Same Public Works department that recommended against removing the slip lane at River and Osborne.

[zalf]

Maddening. It's not as though they didn't successfully pedestrianize it for Canada Day in the past.

[ColdRain&Snow]

Lots of progress being made on 424 Wardlaw Ave. Main floor hollowcore slabs are being installed now. 197 Osborne St in the background.

[ColdRain&Snow]

160 Osborne St on the left and 425 Wardlaw Ave on the right:

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by zalf

Maddening. It's not as though they didn't successfully pedestrianize it for Canada Day in the past.

True, but that's one day for a special event where traffic flows through that area would have been cut significantly anyway (I imagine).

I think we'd all like to see some kind of successful pedestrian mall, but I think suggesting we just close Osbourne Village for the summer is a but simplistic.

I have no idea of the level of training of the city's traffic flow experts, but I'm going to assume that at least some of them know how to add 2 + 2. If they say a summer-long closing of O.V. would cause horrible traffic snarls, then maybe it might be true? Would closing the street to through traffic significantly increase foot traffic for more than the first weekend or two? Is there a way to accurately count pedestrian traffic through the Village?

Personally I'd love to see a pedestrian mall in Winnipeg be as successful as Montreal's tourism promotions made theirs to look, but I don't think it's as easy as "just close the street".

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by pspeid

True, but that's one day for a special event where traffic flows through that area would have been cut significantly anyway (I imagine).

I think we'd all like to see some kind of successful pedestrian mall, but I think suggesting we just close Osbourne Village for the summer is a but simplistic.

I have no idea of the level of training of the city's traffic flow experts, but I'm going to assume that at least some of them know how to add 2 + 2. If they say a summer-long closing of O.V. would cause horrible traffic snarls, then maybe it might be true? Would closing the street to through traffic significantly increase foot traffic for more than the first weekend or two? Is there a way to accurately count pedestrian traffic through the Village?

Personally I'd love to see a pedestrian mall in Winnipeg be as successful as Montreal's tourism promotions made theirs to look, but I don't think it's as easy as "just close the street".

Except it really is though. In Montréal they started with week long experiments, and then when they realized it was highly successful they increased the time the street was pedestrian only as well as increasing the sheer number of streets in the same time. The main issue that these traffic flow “experts” have is that Osborne is really a N/S route that passes through the entire city. However, in Québec City for example they close down parts of Rue St Jean and parts of the Grande Allée. If you’re unfamiliar with Québec City these are two of the most important thoroughfares in the entire city that stretch virtually the whole city limits once they turn into Chemin St-Foy and Blvd Laurier respectively.

Pedestrianizing Osborne initially between Pembina and River would not be the end of the world and we both know it. If successful, one could easily transition that to go up to Broadway, or even creep up to Portage if the city truly has balls.

At the end of the day, Osborne is not the only street we should be looking at to implement these things. Corydon is another street that comes to mind. Maybe one of Marion/Goulet or Sherbrook/Maryland. In Downtown, Waterfront Dr (really most of the Exchange District) and of course Graham Ave as well. There’s so many possibilities, and really if it’s not successful. Oh well the worst thing that happened was a couple weeks of summer with more traffic.

Don’t believe those crooks at public works. There’s not a single one of them that cares for the vitality of streets and just want all downtown/inner city streets to be thoroughfares so they can rush back to their exurban houses in Headingley or Waverley West.

[pegster]

Not Osborne, but the city's plans for Graham Avenue go some way to making it into a kind of pedestrian mall, once the busses come off next year. I hope that it is successful, but the hard part will be filling it with people and preventing it from becoming another void in downtown. But Graham isn't a major thoroughfare, unlike Osborne.

[zalf]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

In Montréal they started with week long experiments, and then when they realized it was highly successful they increased the time the street was pedestrian only as well as increasing the sheer number of streets in the same time.

One of my big gripes with how Winnipeg handles even the smallest change to the road network, e.g. bike lanes, is that it takes years of study by expensive engineers before picking either extreme of cancelling it or building it out fully.

For bike lanes, do we never actually run the experiment and install some jersey barriers and just see how it goes for a month. Or to stay on the subject of pedestrianizing Osborne, plop a couple hesco barriers at either end and see what happens. Maybe it will be a huge success, or maybe it will cause cataclysmic traffic snarls and Public Works will be vindicated. Either way, we'd find out quickly and cheaply.

[bomberjet]

There was some temporary pilot project type things in Winnipeg. Basic moveable curbs nailed to the street. Can't remember exactly where, but they were in and around downtown IIRC.

[ColdRain&Snow]

Originally Posted by zalf

One of my big gripes with how Winnipeg handles even the smallest change to the road network, e.g. bike lanes, is that it takes years of study by expensive engineers before picking either extreme of cancelling it or building it out fully.

For bike lanes, do we never actually run the experiment and install some jersey barriers and just see how it goes for a month. Or to stay on the subject of pedestrianizing Osborne, plop a couple hesco barriers at either end and see what happens. Maybe it will be a huge success, or maybe it will cause cataclysmic traffic snarls and Public Works will be vindicated. Either way, we'd find out quickly and cheaply.

Completely agree, it's super frustrating how long any sort of change takes. For example, Osborne Village is the densest neighbourhood in Winnipeg but still doesn't have one bike lane (unless you can the painted bike lane on Nassau which is like 2 blocks long). Okay, so in 2021 the City decides it's finally time to add bike lanes to Osborne Village and starts designing bike lanes for River and Stradbrook. It's now spring of 2024 and those bike lanes still aren't open.

https://engage.winnipeg.ca/river-str...ted-bike-lanes