Wpg: Chief Peguis Trail Extension

[bomberjet]

The blue line is merely a cartoon representing the two roads will be connected. I assume that square corner will turn into a long curve. The blue part is a Provincial road, not City. So the City really has no say in what happens there. hence the uncertainty around an interchange at Route 90.

The other dog leg around the sensitive land areas near Ferrier is another thing. Not really that noticeable. You know, that sensitive area right next to the concrete pipe plant. But there frogs in there or something. Milkweed maybe, I'm not sure. Ponds, grass, pathway, dog park, traffic signals. Perfect spot for the dream travel plaza!

[bomberjet]

Premilinary Design RFP is out for CPT west.
http://www.winnipeg.ca/MatMgt/FolderContents.asp?FOLDER_NAME=770-2016&YEAR=2016

Includes a single point diamond at Main St. (with CPT free flow, yay!) and a diamond at McPhillips. Future interchanges at Pipeline, Jose Rizal and Route 90. At Grade for Ferrier. That Ferrier thing is stupid. Jeez louise. After my quick skim, didnt pick out anything on the rail crossings, but I'm assuming at grade.

Edit: just skimmed further. It says the City will retain sufficient land at Ferrier for future interchange, so no design is necessary. So that's good. But we all know about anything future.

[esquire]

^ The railway lines that would cross CPT are so lightly used (and by relatively short trains to boot) that grade separations would be overkill. If there was a budget for that I'd rather see it go towards a grade separation where the need is greater.

Glad that common sense is prevailing at Main @ CPT, but I'm sure there will be plenty of crushed metal as Winnipeggers learn to navigate a SPUI.

[bomberjet]

Ya. of the two rail crossings, one could likely be closed within the next 5 years ish. the one closer to Main. The second one should be grade separated, IMO. That line would handle the traffic for both rail lines. I'm always a fan of combining the rail overpasses with roadway interchanges.

[esquire]

^ The second one is just a shortline that runs to the grain elevator in Stony Mountain. I think CP also uses it occasionally to store excess cars. Building an underpass to handle a twice a week 30 car train is way over the top.

[bomberjet]

Overpass, not under. The traffic from the other line that will be closed will use the same one as the grain elevator. From gimli. Anyways, if we want freeways, there are no crossings of any kind. The City is trying to build this as limited access ring road. If they truely want that, no train crossings. That's all I'm getting at.

[esquire]

^ Yeah, but does it make sense to spend $200M or whatever just to get the bright orange freeway line on Google Maps? When in reality all you're doing is eliminating maybe at most maybe 8 2-minute waits per week, and for most of the year probably less than even that?

[bomberjet]

IMO, yes it is. Take a look at CCW. You have a huge overpass of CP main line, then have a rail crossing right at the north end of the overpass!!!! WTF is that? Extend the overpass, move the rail line a bit, figure it out. It's rather embarrassing. I've been saying that a lot lately. Embarrassed by the things that go on here. I work with engineers from other provinces quite regularly. And they laugh at us, how pathetic our infrastructure is. Even the engineers from Saskatchewan, and they're right.

But really that's up to the big wigs down at City Hall to decide. They specify limited access freeway as ultimate design in the doc. That's what it is, no grade crossings of any sort.

[buzzg]

Saskatchewan's infrastructure is lightyears ahead of ours. I'll take their old, peeling highway signs over our shiny new ones for proper highways and freeways any day.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by buzzg

Saskatchewan's infrastructure is lightyears ahead of ours. I'll take their old, peeling highway signs over our shiny new ones for proper highways and freeways any day.

Light years ahead might be an exaggeration. Ontario and Alberta are light years ahead.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

IMO, yes it is. Take a look at CCW. You have a huge overpass of CP main line, then have a rail crossing right at the north end of the overpass!!!! WTF is that? Extend the overpass, move the rail line a bit, figure it out. It's rather embarrassing. I've been saying that a lot lately. Embarrassed by the things that go on here. I work with engineers from other provinces quite regularly. And they laugh at us, how pathetic our infrastructure is. Even the engineers from Saskatchewan, and they're right.

But really that's up to the big wigs down at City Hall to decide. They specify limited access freeway as ultimate design in the doc. That's what it is, no grade crossings of any sort.

There are only so many dollars to go around. At the end of the day there are far more pressing needs than building an overpass over the Prairie Dog Central's line just so we can say that our highways meet some arbitrary standard.

As for CPT and limited access, I think that's the ultimate goal in much the same way that the SWBRT line will one day become LRT... i.e., don't hold your breath. For all intents and purposes, "limited access" means that the city will prevent developers from building direct access to CPT, it doesn't mean they're going to spend hundreds of millions on grade separating everything.

[cheswick]

Can someone explain what they mean here: "It is preferred to
utilize a roundabout in lieu of a curve to change the direction of Leila Avenue towards Dr.
Jose Rizal Way. Permitting a right turn entrance ramp to access Chief Peguis Trail from
Leila Avenue may also be beneficial to reduce neighborhood short-cutting."

I'm having trouble visualizing what they mean here.

Nice to see they didn't go with the Leila ending at Ritchie option they had on one of their presentations.

[bomberjet]

Sounds like they want to put a round-a-about in on Leila near where it dead ends now. Out to the west of the houses. There will be other streets connecting out there.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

IMO, yes it is. Take a look at CCW. You have a huge overpass of CP main line, then have a rail crossing right at the north end of the overpass!!!! WTF is that? Extend the overpass, move the rail line a bit, figure it out. It's rather embarrassing. I've been saying that a lot lately. Embarrassed by the things that go on here. I work with engineers from other provinces quite regularly. And they laugh at us, how pathetic our infrastructure is. Even the engineers from Saskatchewan, and they're right.

But really that's up to the big wigs down at City Hall to decide. They specify limited access freeway as ultimate design in the doc. That's what it is, no grade crossings of any sort.

The secondary train track is only used by Prairie Dog Central and it almost never crosses CCW. I think the maintenance shed is the south side and most of the track is on the north side.

That said I still remember how shortly after it opened something went wrong with that exact crossing and the train was essentially stuck blocking the road. The traffic situation got so bad, and fairly quickly too, the RCMP had to be called in to control the scene and the whole road was shut down until it could be cleared.

[bomberjet]

There was a plan to realign that track so it went under the overpass. Wouldn't cost very much. Probably less than the signals for that crossing cost.

I just started reading the CPT RFP. It says Main St is anticipated to have more traffic the CPT will have. That's why they had Main St being free flow originally. But they've said now there would still be a half signal required on Main St for pedestrians, so it switched to being CPT free flow.

[bomberjet]

From the RFP.

D3.20 The Province had issued an RFP for examining the rationalization of the Winnipeg Beach Line,
this initiative is currently on hold.


This is what I speak of when talking about closing one of the rail lines. Rationalization means closure. Sounds like it's on hold, likely due to the government change. Woo hoo.

Sorry for the mish mash of info. Also sounds like the City wants the Province to pay for the Route 90 interchange. Leaving it at grade t-see intersection now. Then when the Province does the connection to CCW, they build an interchange.

Open house desired for early 2017, with construction in 2018.

[mcpish]

Awesome news, interchange at McPhillips and proper design of the SPUI at Main, it's a good day! It's a new day (yes it is). <dances around like Big-E>

[alittle1]

perhaps they should be looking at something like this:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@41.5673317,-93.8571613,15.5z

or a takeoff of something similat to this....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diverging_diamond_interchange

Winnipeg is so full of deadend streets this maybe the only answer.

[bomberjet]

Exactly. They could do a simple diamond at Ferrier, basic two lane bridge. Have it dead end on the north side would be no problem. It's all about life cycle cost and no money available. The City being broke doesn't want to spend money on a lightly used bridge.

[alittle1]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

There's room in the middle for an additional two lanes. PDF here shows the latest info. But doesn't go into detail on interchange types or configurations. Section at the bottom of page shows the proposed bridge design.
http://www.winnipeg.ca/publicworks/construction/pdf/chiefPeguisWest/CPTW_map_June2016.pdf


They'll be adding a pedestrian pathway as well. There is a separate project for this too and has a tender out now. I assume they need to widen the bridge first to get the proper width on the new pathway.
http://winnipeg.ca/MatMgt/FolderContents.asp?FOLDER_NAME=709-2016&YEAR=2016

Just reading through the RFP for the pathway and it says the functional design is complete and a single point interchange will be constructed at Main st.

BJ,

If the City was interested in saving money and utilizing existing structure for a pedestrian walkway, there is a perfectly good hollow core that runs under the bridge that serves as a service alley for the bridge structure. Furthermore, I would hope that the City isn't thinking of duplicating the Prominade Walkway to St B. or the Disrali, when they are considering a walkway, that may or may not be used, but costs a horrendous amount of money to produce and maintain for a 'few'. Perhaps they should put a count on WHO is using the other ones....?

In my opinion, I would rather see a overpass at Main Street and Henderson Hwy. then wasting money on a pediestrian walkway.