Winnipeg Roads & Infrastructure

[bodaggin]

Fantasy is good Biff. Need more of it. On the transit front I like to start with a blank slate and ask where the highest volume destinations in the city are:

-Downtown
-Universities
-Stadiums
-Malls
-Hospitals and large workplaces
-High density housing

Heat map it first. Then connect the dots. Start drawing lines connecting all of them with the fewest number of transfers in the fastest manner possible (within geographic constraints). Looks crude, but it's super effective.

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

Fantasy is good Biff. Need more of it. On the transit front I like to start with a blank slate and ask where the highest volume destinations in the city are:

-Downtown
-Universities
-Stadiums
-Malls
-Hospitals and large workplaces
-High density housing

Heat map it first. Then connect the dots. Start drawing lines connecting all of them with the fewest number of transfers in the fastest manner possible (within geographic constraints). Looks crude, but it's super effective.

hahaha, funny and sad that SWBRT only connects downtown and UofM, nothing in between.

[Carboy15]

When I went to Edmonton, I praised the expressway design of the Yellowhead trail. It seems like a very good stroad to road conversion. It may not be a high speed Interstate like freeway, but a narrower low speed 80km/h freeway could promote safety and have traffic move smoothly.


North Route 90 should be built in a similar fashion to Yellowhead Trail with concrete barriers isolating the frontage road from the highway. This is a similar idea in the link here:

https://imgur.com/a/A88ysQ1

Note: The Pink and Black lines represent concrete barrier.

[Carboy15]

Also, what about a tunnel on Route 90 from St Matthews Ave to Dublin Ave? I feel like a tunnel would be great for a Route 90 expressway so that we can have free flow travel within the bounds of the Perimeter. It would be great for Centreport Canada and its future connection to 75, making a superhighway/ national trade corridor

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by Carboy15

Also, what about a tunnel on Route 90 from St Matthews Ave to Dublin Ave? I feel like a tunnel would be great for a Route 90 expressway so that we can have free flow travel within the bounds of the Perimeter. It would be great for Centreport Canada and its future connection to 75, making a superhighway/ national trade corridor

Man, we're too broke for a bus garage, nevermind a tunnel lol

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by Carboy15

Also, what about a tunnel on Route 90 from St Matthews Ave to Dublin Ave? I feel like a tunnel would be great for a Route 90 expressway so that we can have free flow travel within the bounds of the Perimeter. It would be great for Centreport Canada and its future connection to 75, making a superhighway/ national trade corridor

Never. Tunnels are exorbitantly expensive.

Cheapest is light expropriation of at grade. Next cheapest is above ground viaducts. And most expensive is tunnels. Winnipeg has tons of land for the first 2. Ford's 401 tunnel idea is super dumb.

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by Carboy15

Also, what about a tunnel on Route 90 from St Matthews Ave to Dublin Ave? I feel like a tunnel would be great for a Route 90 expressway so that we can have free flow travel within the bounds of the Perimeter. It would be great for Centreport Canada and its future connection to 75, making a superhighway/ national trade corridor

I don't feel that is the best option for that corridor regardless of price. That said, there are a couple of places where a tunnel or "buried roadway" may be appropriate on route 90. I think for the oft-debated section from taylor to academy, a semi-buried roadway would make sense, as to not disrupt grade and neighbourhood flow. Conventional SPUIs and other diamond-type interchanges would be appropriate for the southern portions of 90 from Sterling Lyon to the Perimeter. Bridgwater is one of the biggest roadway planning sins I have ever seen. The only adequate solution is to semi-trench the roadway and create weird split diamonds on both sides of that "island" in the centre village thing. The most difficult portion to solve is going to be the north-central bit from Ness to Dublin or so. Either a bunch of the access points get closed off or it would become an extremely expensive proposition.

I honestly don't understand what the COW is thinking at this point in terms of its longterm planning. My personal opinion is that route 90, Bishop, Lag, and Chief Peguis should all be provincial roads as they are the key trade routes through town. Get all that heavy truck through traffic away from the other crosstown routes by protecting and upgrading the existing key corridors. Perhaps at some point we would need an E-W expressway from Lag alongside/utilizing the rail ROW to a point on route 90 near the airport somewhere. These upgrades along with getting a couple quality transit lines set up should be front of mind for all levels of government.

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

My personal opinion is that route 90, Bishop, Lag, and Chief Peguis should all be provincial roads as they are the key trade routes through town.

The numbers support your idea. Of Manitoba's total GDP, Winnipeg contributes 67% of it.

That means 67% of the income and corporate tax revenue the MB province receives, is actually paid by Winnipeggers. Yet Prov MB contributes effectively $0 directly to Winnipeg roads. They give minimal, broad, and one-off municipal transfers.

So Winnipeg gets screwed. All their tax dollars get redirected to roads outside the city. It's a total misappropriation.

Prov MB Road budget is ~$500m a year. Going by pay-to-play, Winnipeg should get at least $300m of it. You may say, "but MB has 17,000km of roads whereas Winnipeg has 7,300 km". Fair point. But $0 is not fair. Maybe $150-200m per year would be fair.

Regardless, Prov MB taking responsibility for the inner ring road would make a lot of sense. It's far more important to grade separate the Kenaston/Bishop/Lag/Chief ring, than to spend on Perimeter.

[Mr Tall Forehead]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

Never. Tunnels are exorbitantly expensive.

Cheapest is light expropriation of at grade. Next cheapest is above ground viaducts. And most expensive is tunnels. Winnipeg has tons of land for the first 2. Ford's 401 tunnel idea is super dumb.

What is light expropriation…any different from regular expropriation?

[The Jabroni]

Originally Posted by Mr Tall Forehead

What is light expropriation…any different from regular expropriation?

The direct opposite of deployment and proliferation for installation of street lights.

I'm kidding of course. It's just expropriation, but less harder.

[HydraY]

about Bison Dr extension
https://janicelukes.ca/blog/bison-dr...tion-pathways/
It's really ridiculous that a 700m section of four-lane divided road and a intersection need 5 to 10 years?

[bodaggin]

Kenaston NB from before Corydon to Academy now mill and filled. Entire curb lane, and both lanes in some sections.

Someone has pushed common sense into city hall and I like it.

Moarrrrr of this. Bravo!

[bodaggin]

I ran province-wide traffic data of the top 50 intersections. Winnipeg AND Manitoba combined. For PROPERLY prioritizing overpass building, without the silo'd "level-of-govt" issues currently showing. Results are telling:

1) Bold are the overpasses currently planned.
2) The 2 Perimeter overpasses planned (McGillivray + St Annes) don't even make the top 20 by volume. In fact they rank 29th and 33rd for total traffic. Incredibly low priority. Waste of money.
3) The Chief Peguis/McPhillips overpass they're planning would rank about 23rd for volume.
4) I was shocked Bishop/Waverley is the busiest intersection in Manitoba by volume.
5) Ness and Academy are a major congestion points relating to Kenaston's widening. Failing to solve both will make a waste out of much of the $700m widening. Good efficient design is critical here.
6) Accident data is sparse. I wish we had it to properly weight danger with flows to determine true priority. Fuck MPI. We need this.

Conclusion: MB + Winnipeg's current overpass prioritization has major errors. MB road money needs to divert to Winnipeg.

I may put this data onto Stroadz to let you guys vote on a top 10 priority. Let me know if you want it.

[WildCake]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

I ran province-wide traffic data of the top 50 intersections. Winnipeg AND Manitoba combined. For PROPERLY prioritizing overpass building, without the silo'd "level-of-govt" issues currently showing. Results are telling:

1) Bold are the overpasses currently planned.
2) The 2 Perimeter overpasses planned (McGillivray + St Annes) don't even make the top 20 by volume. In fact they rank 29th and 33rd for total traffic. Incredibly low priority. Waste of money.
3) The Chief Peguis/McPhillips overpass they're planning would rank about 23rd for volume.
4) I was shocked Bishop/Waverley is the busiest intersection in Manitoba by volume.
5) Ness and Academy are a major congestion points relating to Kenaston's widening. Failing to solve both will make a waste out of much of the $700m widening. Good efficient design is critical here.
6) Accident data is sparse. I wish we had it to properly weight danger with flows to determine true priority. Fuck MPI. We need this.

Conclusion: MB + Winnipeg's current overpass prioritization has major errors. MB road money needs to divert to Winnipeg.

I may put this data onto Stroadz to let you guys vote on a top 10 priority. Let me know if you want it.

What is big and little traffic? Is it main thoroughfare vs the other intersecting roads?

Your data is missing the factor that a lot of these Winnipeg roads have other light-controlled intersections in their immediate vicinity so addressing one intersection doesn't eliminate the problem, it shifts it down the road and may make it worse with induced demand.

We also can't ignore the greater transport truck volume that the Perimeter moves and the strategic importance that it has on the movement of goods around the Winnipeg CMA and with inter-provincial/international trade. Traffic counts and collision data is important but not the be-all-end-all. Collision severity is also much higher on the Perimeter given the speeds involved vs. city roadways.

I'm happy with the province pushing ahead with Perimeter projects given that the city has no funds to contribute to its share of its own infrastructure projects, and Winnipeg is the entity responsible for putting itself in the situation of sprawling out without building infrastructure to accommodate the growth along the way, so it shouldn't be exclusively on the Province to bail the CoW out.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

I do not understand this map.

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

I do not understand this map.

It's a napkin heat map. For the highest volume destinations in the city listed in the OP.

High volume = high transit need.

If you want to design the best possible transit system from scratch, first heat map the highest demand locations. Then draw routes to connect as many of these as possible, in the fastest manner, with the fewest transfers.

That's how you increase ridership; by servicing the most people in the fastest manner possible. Better service.

About the only solace in Winnipeg's incompetent road and transit management is FSD. Tesla will likely have transit solved in 2yrs with 0 cost to cities, before cities can even expand networks. Transit will basically die.

[Winnipeg Grump]

Again, not the right thread for this, but a reminder that Transit developed the new route structure based on that info. They grabbed all of the (anonymized) mobile device data from Alphabet and Apple to analyze where people in this city moved.

It wasn't a back-of-napkin exercise. ;-)

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

It's a napkin heat map. For the highest volume destinations in the city listed in the OP.

High volume = high transit need.

If you want to design the best possible transit system from scratch, first heat map the highest demand locations. Then draw routes to connect as many of these as possible, in the fastest manner, with the fewest transfers.

That's how you increase ridership; by servicing the most people in the fastest manner possible. Better service.

About the only solace in Winnipeg's incompetent road and transit management is FSD. Tesla will likely have transit solved in 2yrs with 0 cost to cities, before cities can even expand networks. Transit will basically die.

Tesla can't build a truck, they certainly won't be making transit obsolete lol

[bomberjet]

Tesla "revolutionized" transportation by putting single occupancy cars....in tunnels.

[bodaggin]

Here's a 30min FSD trip. I didn't catch any interventions. If this doesn't impress you, nothing will. FSD is in the polishing stage. It will achieve L5 autonomy in 1-2 years if not less.

Remember that roughly 6 million Teslas are already on the road. When L5 FSD approves, all those 6 million cars become self driving, with the flick of a switch. Instantly. At 5 seats per car, that's 30 million autonomous seats.

For perspective, roughly 800,000 busses are registered in USA. At 40 seats per bus that's 32 million seats. Roughly the same.

So let me re-iterate loudly: FSD will render bus transit effectively obsolete.

https://youtu.be/gdte6-nKnQw?si=ZNExRvFZ_F5Bo9tA&t=194