Winnipeg | Portage and Main

[vjose32]

Originally Posted by windypeg

Haha that is some beautifully twisted logic.

"Well, we know planners are dummies who get things wrong, we know this because the planners 40 years ago were idiots who screwed things up. Therefore, we should NOT listen to what the planners today are saying, and instead stick with the decision of the planners 40 years ago, who we know were idiots who screwed everything up." .......

Seriously though... the traffic delays - you guys are still talking like we're tearing down a freeway interchange or something. This is a normal intersection. It already has traffic lights. There's already a light cycle you have to wait for. How much difference could it really make letting people cross during said light cycle? I could see 5-ish minute delays. People wait twice as long to get through the Timmies drive thru in the morning so I don't see why they can't put up with the same wait to make our downtown actually seem like a downtown. If a few more people car-pooled or took the bus traffic wouldn't be a problem in the first place. You can watch cars leaving downtown at rush hour and 9/10 have ONE person in them. All those extra cars on the road clogging it up, because each driver needs his own personal chariot instead of riding with a buddy, and you want to blame traffic on a few people crossing the street?

Also the "danger to pedestrians" argument always makes me laugh because really, if that's your big concern, we should be making it a priority to design a city that is more friendly to pedestrians. That means traffic calming, narrowing streets and widening sidewalks, more controlled intersections etc, just generally prioritizing the pedestrian's comfort over the motorist which means low speeds.... It's sort of ridiculous to see people insisting traffic needs to plow through a busy area at top speed, inches away from where people are walking, and claim they're all about pedestrian safety. It's obviously about pampering drivers but very poorly disguised as being for pedestrian safety.

You fail to look at the bigger traffic picture, it’s not just about the one intersection. As soon as you open up that intersection and traffic starts backing up, in all directions, it will then start to back up traffic even more at other intersections. Pretty soon that extra 5 minutes is more like 10 or 15, and a hell of a lot more in the winter. And how many people do you expect to cross that during our frozen winter? They’ll all be underground.

[headhorse]

you have figured out that by adding traffic you create more traffic. you are so close!!

[bomberjet]

^^Not true. This isn't a personal attack, or me belittling you, or me being a team open bully. But you're making stuff up vjose.

[headhorse]

Originally Posted by vjose32

Couldn’t agree more

the only reason we would have injuries is because of cars. we should be looking to vision zero as a model and reducing car use at every chance. want a shorter commute? we need less people driving. want lower taxes? we need less people driving. want to pay less into carbon taxes? we need less people driving. want a healthier population with less health problems? we need less people driving. want a less alienated society? we need less people driving.

but all most people actually care about is their selfish desire to be able to drive wherever they want, whenever they want, at whatever speed they want.

[bomberjet]

Here is the Dillon traffic report again for everyone to peruse.

https://winnipeg.ca/interhom/Portage...afficStudy.pdf

Page 11 and 12 talk about traffic modeling.

Study Area
Figure 6 below shows the area covered by the microsimulation model. The study area covers Portage Avenue between Donald Street and Westbrook Street; Main Street between St. Mary and James; Graham Avenue between Donald Street and Main Street; and Fort Street between St Mary Avenue and Portage Avenue. All streets that cross the major corridors listed here are represented as short intersecting sections with accurate geometry and traffic control at the intersections.

The recommended design is on page 59 of the PDF.

[Ando]

Might I point out that this is just turning into people with entrenched positions restating the same debate that occurred prior to the referendum? I don't see anything new here. Perhaps this thread will go the way of Skycity and Dreamscape until people have time to heal their wounds.

[windypeg]

Originally Posted by vjose32

You fail to look at the bigger traffic picture, it’s not just about the one intersection. As soon as you open up that intersection and traffic starts backing up, in all directions, it will then start to back up traffic even more at other intersections. Pretty soon that extra 5 minutes is more like 10 or 15, and a hell of a lot more in the winter. And how many people do you expect to cross that during our frozen winter? They’ll all be underground.

I'm pretty sure the engineers that did the study would have modeled that. Are you a traffic engineer, or in a directly related field? Because otherwise you're just speculating wildly. You can't get mad at people for calling you uninformed when you're relying on completely speculative doomsday scenarios instead of real data.

[Wolf13]

Originally Posted by Andy6

It's perfectly reasonable to believe that opening the intersection to pedestrians will lead to significant traffic delays, more accidents and more injuries, in addition to being expensive and unlikely to produce any great benefit for downtown. It's certainly not "stupidity" and, in fact, reflects the "smart planning principles" of 40 years ago (which, at very least, leads one to suspect that planning isn't an exact science and that planners' current prescriptions ought to be taken with a grain of salt).

Well, yes and no, but we have a study for that. And it remains but one concerns for an intersection that deals with more than just vehicle traffic.

I will agree, some planners are dolts, and I've spoken to some. However, they still held the power. Unfortunately when they're right on a critical issue, it doesn't matter.

However, as per below, planning principles or injury concern was not what brought us here anyway....

Originally Posted by wardlow

There were at least some local planners who did not like this idea when it came up in the 1970s. Remember, this wasn't an idea drawn up by city planners or traffic engineers, it was drawn up as part of a real estate agreement between property owners wanting an underground shopping mall and the City.

This didn't reflect "smart planning principles" of 40 years ago. If it did, there would surely have been other downtown intersections in North American that were fully closed to pedestrians in the 1970s. But of course there were not.

Bingo.

This is why the "open" side is fired up when the "closed" side brings up the traffic/safety angle... asked and answered. Next!

Originally Posted by Stormer

Observations from afar (Regina):

I have not read the entire thread and this may have been covered, but the referendum seems like a total political abdication of responsibility. How would you feel if you lived/worked on or near an arterial street and the City decided to let the whole population vote on whether you could walk across your own street. That is not how its supposed to work.

The City administration and perhaps Council should be making these decisions, not voters. Voters should decide who is the mayor and council and hold them accountable for their decisions.

Can you imagine if they held a City-wide vote on whether a neighbourhood should get a new arena or other amenity. Would such things ever get built?

Completely agree, especially to the bold. Bowman did this to us to get re-elected (would have, regardless).

Originally Posted by pspeid

Exactly. It's too bad proponents of the "keep it closed" side seem to have been more interested in "winning" the debate rather than discussing it and coming to a solution that can speak to concerns of both sides (like the idea of a Fort street bus mall). Nope...they HAVE to get everything their way AND toss in personal attacks and insults along the way. I sincerely hope the next time this issue comes up the "open" side has some adults to talk to.

I'll say it... the fort street bus mall idea is brutal in my opinion... I won't rehash it for all of our collective sanity though lol.

Originally Posted by Ando

Ack. I'm sorry we are re-hashing all of this again. But I'm tired of hearing all of this nonsense over again about the tone of the Yes side. That's just a red herring used by people who realize they really have no substantive reason to oppose something. The whole Trump populist rhetoric is premised on opposing so-called "elitism". It saves you from actually having to come up with reasoned arguments when you don't have any.
The question hopefully will turn to what happens next. There will undoubtedly be a waiting period but it will be important to start thinking about how to get this done. Hopefully, our "elected" representatives can play their part.

This thread should stay open for the single reason that it allows you and I to agree very strongly on a subject matter

Originally Posted by vjose32

Couldn’t agree more

Sorry man, but this is the problem!!!

His point was immediately and completely factually debunked in the VERY NEXT post. With facts, and not information. And you magically agree with the inaccurate position.

Not trying to be an ass, but that's exactly what just happened.

Originally Posted by vjose32

You fail to look at the bigger traffic picture, it’s not just about the one intersection. As soon as you open up that intersection and traffic starts backing up, in all directions, it will then start to back up traffic even more at other intersections. Pretty soon that extra 5 minutes is more like 10 or 15, and a hell of a lot more in the winter. And how many people do you expect to cross that during our frozen winter? They’ll all be underground.

You raise a very good point, but it is answered in the report, but then people get upset when an "open" person plays the "uninformed" card (though they should know how to play nice).

Originally Posted by Ando

Might I point out that this is just turning into people with entrenched positions restating the same debate that occurred prior to the referendum? I don't see anything new here. Perhaps this thread will go the way of Skycity and Dreamscape until people have time to heal their wounds.

Well, it's my fault... I took some days off SSP and just responded in every thread lol, ignoring the last post date prior.

[cheswick]

I’m confused as to why people think allowing pedestrian crossing will somehow cause traffic chaos. What’s the logic there? Its not even the busiest intersection in the city. The busier ones allow pedestrian crossing.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

C'mon Cory. I talked to many team closed people and they're just the same. Some are polite, some are complete assholes. No matter what information was presented, it was fingers in ears going "la la la la la la".

And there we go, immediately moving towards personal attacks against people not supporting Team Open. Seems we cannot even attempt to have a civil conversation on how the attitudes of Team Open did more to push people away than any of their proposals did to bring them onto the other side.

Originally Posted by Ando

Ack. I'm sorry we are re-hashing all of this again. But I'm tired of hearing all of this nonsense over again about the tone of the Yes side. That's just a red herring used by people who realize they really have no substantive reason to oppose something.

The City is in control of a traffic management centre. They could have used that to adjust the timing for the lights at Portage and Main to conduct a live simulation of the impacts of opening Portage and Main to pedestrians but it was not done. There was also no formal study down on the overall impacts the opening could have to all forms of traffic, including transit, throughout the downtown. There was extremely limited formal information released to support either a permanent opening or a permanent closing.

The complete lack of information supporting a change in position is definitely a substantive reason to oppose a proposal. Matter of fact the direction given on group decision making when facing such a situation is that you vote against the proposal so it can be sent back and returned with the missing information. No red herrings there.

Originally Posted by Andy6

The one thing that is obviously true here us that no one really knows what the results of opening the intersection would be. Everyone is just guessing. No one is “stupid” merely because they hold a more optimistic or a less optimistic view about what would happen. The city should have had much better information and a much clearer set of options on the table before going to a referendum on this issue.

Exactly Andy. The route of the issue though is the elected city officials that sent the Portage and Main question to a public vote knew in advance there was unlikely to be strong, [b]fact based[b] evidence to support opening. Some had made very public promises to undertaken the opening before getting the complete information and needed a way to try and save their political face. Deferring the decision to a public vote they knew going it was unlikely to support opening is how they choose to do that and there is little the Team Open campaign could have done to change that.

[Urban recluse]

Originally Posted by headhorse

the only reason we would have injuries is because of cars. we should be looking to vision zero as a model and reducing car use at every chance. want a shorter commute? we need less people driving. want lower taxes? we need less people driving. want to pay less into carbon taxes? we need less people driving. want a healthier population with less health problems? we need less people driving. want a less alienated society? we need less people driving.

but all most people actually care about is their selfish desire to be able to drive wherever they want, whenever they want, at whatever speed they want.

True.

[Urban recluse]

Originally Posted by Andy6

The one thing that is obviously true here us that no one really knows what the results of opening the intersection would be. Everyone is just guessing. No one is “stupid” merely because they hold a more optimistic or a less optimistic view about what would happen. The city should have had much better information and a much clearer set of options on the table before going to a referendum on this issue.

Give me a f*ckin break. How many other intersections with the same traffic levels are not closed?

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by Urban recluse

Give me a f*ckin break. How many other intersections with the same traffic levels are not closed?

It's not really the traffic levels, as such, so much as the centrality of the intersection to the street network, if I can put it that way. There is also the unusual physical size of the intersection, which increases the amount of time that would need to be devoted to pedestrian crossings during which traffic flows would be inhibited. I don't know what would happen if they opened it, and don't purport to know. My recollection is that closing the intersection in the 1970s was widely held to have improved traffic flows downtown -- if that is so (doesn't the City have records of this?) then there would definitely be reason to believe that re-opening it now could cause an opposite effect.

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by Andy6

It's not really the traffic levels, as such, so much as the centrality of the intersection to the street network, if I can put it that way. There is also the unusual physical size of the intersection, which increases the amount of time that would need to be devoted to pedestrian crossings during which traffic flows would be inhibited. I don't know what would happen if they opened it, and don't purport to know. My recollection is that closing the intersection in the 1970s was widely held to have improved traffic flows downtown -- if that is so (doesn't the City have records of this?) then there would definitely be reason to believe that re-opening it now could cause an opposite effect.

Despite any delays it would cause, I think its a good idea. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't give a damn if it adds 10 minutes to your commute. You'll survive.

[windypeg]

Originally Posted by CoryB

And there we go, immediately moving towards personal attacks against people not supporting Team Open. Seems we cannot even attempt to have a civil conversation on how the attitudes of Team Open did more to push people away than any of their proposals did to bring them onto the other side.

So you want to have a discussion about how Team Open had bad attitudes but someone points out that Team Closed had bad apples too and you get all sensitive? So you can say the Open guys were a bunch of jerks and you're someone who just wants to "have a civil discussion" but somebody points out there were also Closed guys who were a-holes and you get all triggered. Pot, kettle.

From everything I remember seeing, 3/4 of online & social media discussion on this was very negative pro-Closed posts that usually amounted to "This is idiotic and a pointless waste of money and the only people who want this are stupid hipster elitists." I'm sure there were some people in the Open camp who were condescending and high-and-mighty but if you somehow didn't notice the barrage of negativity and name-calling from Team Closed you couldn't possibly have been paying attention.

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by Andy6

It's not really the traffic levels, as such, so much as the centrality of the intersection to the street network, if I can put it that way. There is also the unusual physical size of the intersection, which increases the amount of time that would need to be devoted to pedestrian crossings during which traffic flows would be inhibited. I don't know what would happen if they opened it, and don't purport to know. My recollection is that closing the intersection in the 1970s was widely held to have improved traffic flows downtown -- if that is so (doesn't the City have records of this?) then there would definitely be reason to believe that re-opening it now could cause an opposite effect.

There is a lot of turning movements at Portage and Main -- it's not simply two major crosstown corridors that intersect. But I would point out that Main and Broadway, three blocks south, is another major intersection that is eight lanes wide, has very high traffic volumes and a high amount of turning movement, but is open to pedestrians. Pedestrians crossing Main at Broadway do indeed slow down rush-hour traffic racing home to St. Boniface or St. Vital, and it's not a comfortable place to be a pedestrian, but life does indeed go on.

And again, this was not a traffic management solution, but was the result of a very unusual real estate agreement. If it was a traffic management solution, I would assume it would be applied elsewhere at the time, in Winnipeg or in other cities. If anyone wants to do some digging and find pro-closure sentiment from planners, engineers, architects, the general public, or even the CAA or some brash headline-seeking alderman *before* it became a possibility vis-a-vis the Winnipeg Square real estate deal, I'm all ears.

[Urban recluse]

It cannot be stressed enough that downtown needs to be reclaimed by pedestrians.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by wardlow

There is a lot of turning movements at Portage and Main -- it's not simply two major crosstown corridors that intersect. But I would point out that Main and Broadway, three blocks south, is another major intersection that is eight lanes wide, has very high traffic volumes and a high amount of turning movement, but is open to pedestrians. Pedestrians crossing Main at Broadway do indeed slow down rush-hour traffic racing home to St. Boniface or St. Vital, and it's not a comfortable place to be a pedestrian, but life does indeed go on.

And again, this was not a traffic management solution, but was the result of a very unusual real estate agreement. If it was a traffic management solution, I would assume it would be applied elsewhere at the time, in Winnipeg or in other cities. If anyone wants to do some digging and find pro-closure sentiment from planners, engineers, architects, the general public, or even the CAA or some brash headline-seeking alderman *before* it became a possibility vis-a-vis the Winnipeg Square real estate deal, I'm all ears.

I took a very quick scan of the Free Press archives from the 1970s but couldn't find much to point one way or the other on this. There are simply a lot of matter-of-fact statements describing the closure of the corner to pedestrians, some references to retiming the signals to account for the fact that pedestrians wouldn't be crossing there anymore. There are some references to protests led by Coun. Joe Zuken who was upset about the lack of accessibility for the handicapped.

What's interesting is that the shopping concourses were a bigger deal from a retail standpoint then as compared to now. The Lombard Concourse had a pretty full array of shops including men's and women's clothing, shoes, jewellery, a pharmacy, sporting goods, cameras, you name it. Winnipeg Square was probably in a similar situation, so it's easy to see how the owners would want to channel as many people down there as possible.

Incidentally, I came upon an article discussing plans for Winnipeg Square and aside from the usual stuff (2 office towers, parkade, shops, hotel) there was also reference to something I don't remember reading about before... a major department store. Anyone know what that was about? My best guess is that maybe Holt Renfrew considered it as a site for a new location before they ended up going to Portage Place instead? It would have been interesting had they gone to Winnipeg Square, as it could have provided the retail anchor that the area never really had as all the office towers went up. I wonder where the department store would have went?

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by CoryB

And there we go, immediately moving towards personal attacks against people not supporting Team Open. Seems we cannot even attempt to have a civil conversation on how the attitudes of Team Open did more to push people away than any of their proposals did to bring them onto the other side.

That's not a personal attack. I was responding to your post. It goes both ways.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

Despite any delays it would cause, I think its a good idea. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't give a damn if it adds 10 minutes to your commute. You'll survive.

But will survival consist of a steady drain of employment from downtown as it becomes harder and harder to attract employees to a place that is not only perceived as somewhat dangerous, but is now also increasingly difficult to get to? We have this problem in Toronto, obviously on a larger scale, but there are real consequences to adding 10 minutes to peoples’ commutes.