Winnipeg | Downtown Developments & Discussions

[Mr Tall Forehead]

Originally Posted by ColdRain&Snow

Yeah, that intersection is kind of confusing.

That whole corner causes a lot of confusion.

[bomberjet]

That's the norm at every intersection. You should yield to the pedestrian. Having that new setup downtown applied to all locations would be nice! I still love Montreal. No right turn on red. Pedestrians get their own signal phase a lot of places. So much better.

[pspeid]

Shaping up to be a big year for the downtown:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/winnipeg/article/...-snapshot-filled-with-optimism-for-core/

Perception is reality for a lot of people. One side effect of the increase in downtown events I'm hoping for is having more people come into the downtown and realize it isn't the terrible place they've believed it to be. Seeing the amount of new construction/re-construction going on will hopefully change some attitudes, and help the turnaround downtown.

[EndIt]

I wonder how much reduced immigration will effect downtown revitalization. The community that's sprung up around central park seems to have been mainly due to immigrant families.

To be frank, most born and raised Canadians are still obsessed with single family homes and scared of city centres. Unless there's a massive shift in expectations & culture or the area becomes cool enough to gentrify (lol), the negative perception of downtown will persist and few settled suburbanites or their grown-up kids will want to put down roots there. I live in Toronto, and even now half the people in the GTA start dry heaving at the sight of a homeless dude.

[neutroniks]

I can't speak for the rest of downtown, but the East Exchange is probably the busiest I've ever seen it. Lots of foot traffic and lots of people out and about at all times of the day, especially with theatre season & lots of families attending tournaments at Sports for Life. The amount of new apartments & condos have also increased and you almost always see at least one dog walker, even at the wee hours of 2AM.

With the odd homeless person here or there, 99% of the mind their own business and just want to be left alone. I've encountered homeless people in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa and they're waaaaay more aggressive out there than our homeless population.

[EndIt]

Originally Posted by neutroniks

I can't speak for the rest of downtown, but the East Exchange is probably the busiest I've ever seen it. Lots of foot traffic and lots of people out and about at all times of the day, especially with theatre season & lots of families attending tournaments at Sports for Life. The amount of new apartments & condos have also increased and you almost always see at least one dog walker, even at the wee hours of 2AM.

With the odd homeless person here or there, 99% of the mind their own business and just want to be left alone. I've encountered homeless people in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa and they're waaaaay more aggressive out there than our homeless population.

Well that's good to hear! I guess not having to deal with as much blighted properties and no real worries about displacing an established community made it basically a blank slate. Hopefully everything goes to plan with Railside and we'll hit the fabled critical mass.

I saw this reddit thread a few months back about how many parking lots were in Downtown Toronto only 20 years ago and it gave me a lot of optimism for Winnipeg's potential growth.

[neutroniks]

I too have a lot of optimism.

Build out the parking lots on Graham, the lots on Donald (between St. Marys & York), Main St between St. Marys & Broadway, and the lots beside 201 Portage and the lots behind the Richardson and you have a very different looking Winnipeg.

[Jeff]

Crews have started removing the decorative light poles along downtown Portage Ave. and replacing them with the standard silver poles found along any other stretch of road in town. Hydro was probably happy to do this to streamline maintenance (one light versus four) and those decorative poles were put up a more than quarter century ago now. Wonder what that means for the xmas decor, though..

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by Jeff

Crews have started removing the decorative light poles along downtown Portage Ave. and replacing them with the standard silver poles found along any other stretch of road in town. Hydro was probably happy to do this to streamline maintenance (one light versus four) and those decorative poles were put up a more than quarter century ago now. Wonder what that means for the xmas decor, though..

Between that and the replacements of 1 light lamp standards for The Exchange I find it sad & abysmal. Boring, yawn. The ornamental fixtures bring a lot of joy and interest along those routes.
The restrained les interesting light poles won't be so great adorning some very plain looking structures.

[neutroniks]

Originally Posted by BAKGUY

Between that and the replacements of 1 light lamp standards for The Exchange I find it sad & abysmal. Boring, yawn. The ornamental fixtures bring a lot of joy and interest along those routes.
The restrained les interesting light poles won't be so great adorning some very plain looking structures.

I know a lot of people were very upset that they're changing the lamps in the Exchange to the very generic ones that are found in other suburbs of the city. I get the whole efficiency, and what not, but could they not have just changed all the bulbs to LEDs to last longer? The lamps in the Exchange make it so distinct and you instantly know what area of the city you're in. I'm really hoping they don't replace the ones that line the walking path along Stephen Juba Park because it gives a very New York feel when walking down that path during Summer & Winter nights. Brings a lot character.

100% Agree about Portage Avenue as well.

[Jeff]

Crews were also hard at work getting to the last four globe fixtures in the Exchange I noticed yesterday as well.. If they're gonna standardize the lighting, I would like to see them also switch over more of the mature neighbourhoods to the decorative style (like along Wellington Cres, Lyndale Dr, etc.). It looks good on the streets in Wolseley where they have it.

[cllew]

The foundry that produced the Stittsville lighting posts used by the city went out of business years ago.

In a 2002 tender the city said they have molds to produce more of the posts and were looking for 56 to be produced at that time.

I wonder if the cost to produce more of them in 2025 is more than the cost to remove /scrap the existing ones and replace with one of the 3 new style of decorative lamp post Manitoba Hydro stock?

Or did something happen to the molds in 2002 and they can't be used 23 years later?

[pegcityboy]

Was just on Portage and noticed the street lights that are changed by the University of Winnipeg . I hope there is a good reason for this as the light standards now add character and makes Portage stand out as our main through fare compared to other streets downtown. The new ones are bland , boring and lack any architectural element to them , same with the exchange not happy at all they are changing those lights as the Exchange is a National Historic Area . I hope the old light standards could be used in the “ trendy “ areas of The Village , Corydon or French Quarter at least and are not just being replaced for not a good reason !

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by pegcityboy

Was just on Portage and noticed the street lights that are changed by the University of Winnipeg . I hope there is a good reason for this as the light standards now add character and makes Portage stand out as our main through fare compared to other streets downtown. The new ones are bland , boring and lack any architectural element to them , same with the exchange not happy at all they are changing those lights as the Exchange is a National Historic Area . I hope the old light standards could be used in the “ trendy “ areas of The Village , Corydon or French Quarter at least and are not just being replaced for not a good reason !

It seems to matter not that we have a world class area. Such disrespect to the few world class attractions ew get tourists to see. CHEAP is a Manitoba right of passage. Many like bragging that we are Frugal. Investors & Tourists comment & take note of that & share their underwhelming opinions.

[cllew]

One reason there are not more unique light standards is they are special order and the city does not pay Manitoba Hydro to keep large amount of spares in storage. The poles get damaged from traffic accidents, snow clearing, etc.

It is just not the custom designs in the exchange / downtown that are being changed out.

Here where I live in East Kildonan, Manitoba Hydro has been doing a concrete base / steel pole refresh over the last few years. Some blocks are done as part of a street reconstruction project, and others like my block were done because of failure of the 60+ year old underground wiring.

I am sure that the same thing is also being done in other parts of Winnipeg.

Here is Manitoba Hydro's current standard offering of street light poles
https://www.hydro.mb.ca/docs/billing/street_light_catalog.pdf

[Mr Tall Forehead]

Yeah there’s a massive disconnect between MB Hydro and anything that may or may not be on the City’s or a local BIZ’s priority lists.

They rarely even communicate on maintenance schedules. It seems pretty common that after the City spends a ton of money renewing a street or sidewalk, Hydro or Centra Gas will roll on in the next summer and dig up the new concrete to do underground work (patched with asphalt of course).

[neutroniks]

Originally Posted by Mr Tall Forehead

Yeah there’s a massive disconnect between MB Hydro and anything that may or may not be on the City’s or a local BIZ’s priority lists.

They rarely even communicate on maintenance schedules. It seems pretty common that after the City spends a ton of money renewing a street or sidewalk, Hydro or Centra Gas will roll on in the next summer and dig up the new concrete to do underground work (patched with asphalt of course).

This. This is the one that grinds my gears the most. A whole street will get rehabilitated and fixed with new foundation, gravel, moisture barrier and like, 2 feet of nicely laid concrete on a major through fare, and then a year later, hydro goes and digs everything up and sloppily puts it back together.

[zalf]

Some hard hats at the Boyd building again today. Maybe it's finally happening?

[neutroniks]

Originally Posted by zalf

Some hard hats at the Boyd building again today. Maybe it's finally happening?

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by neutroniks

...I know how you feel!