Winnipeg | Osborne Village & Fort Rouge

[Biff]

We are the city of studies.

[zalf]

Originally Posted by 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.

Bannatyne and McDermot. They're "temporary" curbs, but they've been there for years and only move when the snowplows hit them. Since the experiment was successful, I'd like to see those two made permanent and the temporary curbs redeployed to trial somewhere like Wellington Crescent, Stafford, or Lilac.

[pegster]

Originally Posted by ColdRain&Snow

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

I agree with the complaint, but in fairness, the bike lane is open on Stradbrook between Wellington and Osborne.

[Johnny199r]

Originally Posted by pegster

I agree with the complaint, but in fairness, the bike lane is open on Stradbrook between Wellington and Osborne.

They stopped working on the bike lane last fall between Donald and Stradbrook when there was still lots of warm weather left.

They haven’t resumed working on that section yet this year. I don’t understand why.

[pegster]

Originally Posted by Johnny199r

They stopped working on the bike lane last fall between Donald and Stradbrook when there was still lots of warm weather left.

They haven’t resumed working on that section yet this year. I don’t understand why.

Construction has, seemingly, slowly started on the eastern half of River Ave this week. Hopefully it's a sign of things to come.

And agreed, I don't understand why construction doesn't take advantage of every warm second we have. But every time I think that, I remember how much people complain about construction in this city. Folks, you can complain about the crumbling infrastructure or the construction, but not both!

[WinCitySparky]

It’s still somewhat early in the season and all the rain has likely slowed the start to most things road work

[cllew]

Originally Posted by WinCitySparky

It’s still somewhat early in the season and all the rain has likely slowed the start to most things road work

There are some open road patch excavations in Elmwood that have a few inches of sanding water as of yesterday afternoon. Going to take a few warm days for the sub-grade to naturally dry out before the contractor can pour concrete.

[borkborkbork]

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.

Pedestrian malls only work on streets that are *already* vibrant and busy. Mount-Royal in Montreal is a lively and well-used street to begin with.

Think of Sparks Street in Ottawa, then take away the tourists, and I think that's what Osborne would look like as a ped mall.

https://www.governing.com/assessment...ian-malls.html

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

Pedestrian malls only work on streets that are *already* vibrant and busy. Mount-Royal in Montreal is a lively and well-used street to begin with.

Think of Sparks Street in Ottawa, then take away the tourists, and I think that's what Osborne would look like as a ped mall.

https://www.governing.com/assessment...ian-malls.html

Excellent article on pedestrian malls, thanks for posting this!

[Bellatrix]

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.

As a close by resident, I'd love for the village to be pedestrianized over the summer and find all the whining about traffic delays extremely infuriating. BUT I have to admit there's one big problem with doing this on Osborne: The buses!

I've been to Montreal in the summer and from what I can see, they just temporarily reroute the buses (usually only one line per street) along the next parallel street. Not a big deal, Montreal is quite the dense grid around these areas and you just walk one block further to your stop. Additionally, the metro is completely unaffected by this and people are more willing to walk a little to the next metro station in the summer, instead of taking a bus.

With Osborne's geography and the mess that is confusion corner I don't see any good solution here. There are three lines, the 16 (Osborne), 18 (Corydon) and 60 (Pembina) going through. How would you reroute them and still keep the village itself accessible by transit?
What's the other option? Close the street to regular traffic and only let buses through at low speed? Maybe, but that is a lot of buses, especially around rush hour.
As much as I would love it, this is just really hard to do on Osborne without going full tram straight away.

[borkborkbork]

Yeah, from that article, access is important as a consideration. You either need lots of parking, or a widely used and appealing transit system. Osborne would lack either.

"WHEN IT COMES TO MOST BIG URBAN PLANNING DECISIONS, it can be difficult to pin down why some succeed and others fail. That's not true in the case of pedestrian malls. They have been studied in minute detail, and we have a pretty good idea about when they work and when they (much more frequently) don't work.

Pedestrian malls have succeeded in college towns like Boulder, Colo., and Charlottesville, Va. They have succeeded in cities with substantial numbers of tourists, such as Denver and Miami Beach, or in towns with a significant downtown residential population. They work where there is an attractive body of water nearby. Perhaps most of all, they work if they are easy to get into and out of, either by car or by an appealing transit system that visitors are willing to use. It isn't mandatory to have all these positive features, but it's hard to make the concept work if you don't have some of them."

I think it's hard to argue that OV has any of these except perhaps a growing residential population, but even that is not really present at the scale the article is describing.

[borkborkbork]

in other news:

on reddit they are saying that the old basil's will be half shirley's (discussed here prior) and half a new restaurant by the team behind Clementine. does anyone know anything about this? this seems very positive

[peg]

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

in other news:

on reddit they are saying that the old basil's will be half shirley's (discussed here prior) and half a new restaurant by the team behind Clementine. does anyone know anything about this? this seems very positive

I know someone involved. It looks like the space itself is going to be amazing. Don't know if I can say more lol, but I'm excited for it!

[trueviking]

Noticed the Za at River and Osborne is becoming a Freshslice Pizza. Not sure if that’s better or not.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by trueviking

Noticed the Za at River and Osborne is becoming a Freshslice Pizza. Not sure if that’s better or not.

Different, not better haha.

[ColdRain&Snow]

Oh wow that's great news, for me at least haha. I go to the Freshslice on Portage pretty often for lunch. The pizza is pretty good and pretty cheap. Was never a fan of Za Pizza Bistro.

[EdwardTH]

Originally Posted by ColdRain&Snow

Oh wow that's great news, for me at least haha. I go to the Freshslice on Portage pretty often for lunch. The pizza is pretty good and pretty cheap. Was never a fan of Za Pizza Bistro.

Za had fallen so far in quality that I'm sure this counts as improvement.

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

Yeah, from that article, access is important as a consideration. You either need lots of parking, or a widely used and appealing transit system. Osborne would lack either.

I think it's hard to argue that OV has any of these except perhaps a growing residential population, but even that is not really present at the scale the article is describing.

I know Winnipeg's transit in general leaves much to be desired but to be fair Osborne village probably has the best transit service anywhere in the city. Also it COULD have the appealing waterfront if they actually built the AT bridge and invested in the riverbank as proposed here:
https://www.theforks.com/uploads/doc...front-2014.pdf

[Biff]

I am starting to really think we need to consider spending the money required to raise the riverwalk. The past few years have shown much more volatile environmental conditions that keep the riverwalk closed. Our rivers could be so much more and I feel we are wasting opportunities to turn them into something even more special than they currently are. The Legislature to Waterfront Drive should always be open.

[Kris22]

Originally Posted by Biff

I am starting to really think we need to consider spending the money required to raise the riverwalk. The past few years have shown much more volatile environmental conditions that keep the riverwalk closed. Our rivers could be so much more and I feel we are wasting opportunities to turn them into something even more special than they currently are. The Legislature to Waterfront Drive should always be open.

100% agree. The rivers are the only natural feature we have and the river walk, even when open, is often in rough shape. I’d rather the proposed pedestrian bridge from Assiniboine to river ave be scrapped or delayed and a raised river walk take priority

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by Kris22

100% agree. The rivers are the only natural feature we have and the river walk, even when open, is often in rough shape. I’d rather the proposed pedestrian bridge from Assiniboine to river ave be scrapped or delayed and a raised river walk take priority

I wonder if private is needed for these projects? Tough sell in the 21st century but I bet a private initiative to raise money is the only way these nice to have things happen. Mind you I don't mean P3, but like old school philanthropy in public works. A lot of this city's legacy amenities were built that way. Sucks that that is where we are but the city and province are as broke as a joke.