Manitoba | Highways

[VANRIDERFAN]

Regina ByPass - 1.8 Billion (though many dispute that cost as say its more like 2 to 2.5 Billion)
20 structures (just counting in my head)
16 Overpasses ( including 3 little shorties over a RR line)
4 bridges over Wascana creek
40 km of new 4 lane highway.

4.5 million per structure (including the highway). So yea, WTF Manitoba?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatche...0opened,a%20cost%20of%20%241.8%20billion.

[esquire]

^ Pretty much. I don't think I've ever seen any kind of critical analysis of this in the media. This forum is pretty well the only place I've even seen any discussion of the unusually high cost of this interchange.

[bomberjet]

St. Mary's vs. the Nova Scotia one, vs ring road.

The 4.6 mil per structure. Is literally just the bridge itself. Today, the girders will cost more than that.

Ya St. Mary's is expensive. There's a lot of new roadway and they're rebuilding the entire main line. The birdge itself is probably a small portion of the $120 mil or whatever it was.

The Nova Scotia one they are basically just building the ramps and the bridge. Manitoba chooses to go the full reconstruction route. MB could just do what NS did and add the exit ramps and the birdge. Cheapest possible solution (i've been saying this for a while now).

[Biff]

There is a ton of roadwork involved in St Mary's as bomberjet stated. It is similar to 59 and the N Perimeter. That $250 m included a lot of 6 lane concrete roadway.

[esquire]

^ Sure, but the NS project also included other structures, widenings and new roadways.

Is the benefit we are getting from our massively expensive diamond really 5x the benefit that NS is getting from theirs?

I would think the priority should be getting grade separations built rather than building a supremely expensive luxury model while stop signs and traffic lights clog the highway a few kilometres away...

[WildCake]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Sure, but the NS project also included other structures, widenings and new roadways.

Is the benefit we are getting from our massively expensive diamond really 5x the benefit that NS is getting from theirs?

I would think the priority should be getting grade separations built rather than building a supremely expensive luxury model while stop signs and traffic lights clog the highway a few kilometres away...

Then we would all complain that we half assed it.

The perimeter roadway needs to be shifted entirely for proper medians. If they didn't do that, the St Marys bridge would not be properly aligned and would need to be modified/replaced whenever the wider medians are implemented.

[Wpgstvsouth94]

[QUOTE=Dengler Avenue;9691639]Is it because of the geology?
Or is there incompetence or outright corruption going on behind the scene?[/QUOTE

The land is very flat and dry. I would say corruption behind the scenes..

[WildCake]

[QUOTE=Wpgstvsouth94;9691919]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Is it because of the geology?
Or is there incompetence or outright corruption going on behind the scene?[/QUOTE

The land is very flat and dry. I would say corruption behind the scenes..

Just cause they're not blasting rock, doesn't mean the geology doesn't suck.

You're a short jog from the Red River. Prime clay/gumbo territory. Pretty sure you need to dig deeper and need more aggregate base to have a solid foundation on roadwork.

Plus all the road realignment and traffic management.

[plrh]

[QUOTE=Wpgstvsouth94;9691919]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Is it because of the geology?
Or is there incompetence or outright corruption going on behind the scene?[/QUOTE

The land is very flat and dry. I would say corruption behind the scenes..

I disagree. The clay here is very unpredictable to work with. You will find going forward that no company wants to risk millions of dollars on the moisture content being controllable. I would bet the road embankment will be imported gravel, 10-15' deep for ~20 lane kms of road. It's still cheaper than drying saturated clay in 1' lifts in a wet summer. No paving companies come from outside Manitoba and make money, because the local pavers own their own gravel pits.

[Dengler Avenue]

At this rate, you guys are making it sound like twinning the remainder of TCH through the shields will be easier.

[bomberjet]

The ground in Winnipeg is terrible. To "do it right" means to go deeper with gravel and do other things. So maybe it costs more per mile than other places.

Then the construction contracting and materials racket come in.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

The ground in Winnipeg is terrible. To "do it right" means to go deeper with gravel and do other things. So maybe it costs more per mile than other places.

Then the construction contracting and materials racket come in.

Maybe it does cost more per mile. But again... nearly 5x more?!?!

When you're talking nine figures, you are expecting something major like this one in NY State, not a measly diamond

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governo...change-improvement-project-monroe-county
https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021-11/Monroe_County_Interchange_Project.pdf

[bomberjet]

True dat.

[pacman]

I wish the provincial and Winnipeg governments would work together to start knocking off low hanging fruit / simple interchanges on a consistent predictable basis. Right now there is no incentive for any massive contractor to come in and setup shop in Manitoba to take advantage of a market with little competition. By the same token there is no incentive for local contractors to grow to the scale that would allow them to kick ass in this underserved market because there's maybe one interchange every decade. Until there is some economies of scale allowed to dictate the pricing in this market, Manitoba will continue to get "one-off pricing" from groups made of local partnerships among multiple companies or the Flatirons coming here to "take advantage" of the high prices and then realize the prices were not what they were cracked up to be. Either the province goes with a behemoth scale project that goes all at once a la Regina bypass (full south perimeter upgrade in one stage) or consistently knock off 1 simple diamond EVERY year - rolling the timing of the design and construction along so that actual construction of the subsequent interchange starts the following year even while the previous one is finishing up. Only then will competition start to come into the market/local companies grow to serve the existing.

I think there's a misconception that there is a construction racket here in Manitoba. Last year it is common knowledge that the majority of roadwork / general contractors actually lost money or had massively reduced profit margins. No matter what people think of the free market, unless there is incentive ie: profit to be made here, there is no reason for companies to become ultra-efficient and grow to support the massive scale that is needed to bid a St Mary's interchange at a price even remotely comparable to other markets that are spending big money on new and existing infrastructure. There's a reason Flatiron was a one and done with the 101/59 interchange, their "high numbers" didn't translate into anything but headaches for them and deciding to go back to markets where they can churn out higher volumes without having to head up to the barren wasteland of Manitoba to complete the first overdesigned interchange in how many years?

[WildCake]

Originally Posted by pacman

I wish the provincial and Winnipeg governments would work together to start knocking off low hanging fruit / simple interchanges on a consistent predictable basis. Right now there is no incentive for any massive contractor to come in and setup shop in Manitoba to take advantage of a market with little competition. By the same token there is no incentive for local contractors to grow to the scale that would allow them to kick ass in this underserved market because there's maybe one interchange every decade. Until there is some economies of scale allowed to dictate the pricing in this market, Manitoba will continue to get "one-off pricing" from groups made of local partnerships among multiple companies or the Flatirons coming here to "take advantage" of the high prices and then realize the prices were not what they were cracked up to be. Either the province goes with a behemoth scale project that goes all at once a la Regina bypass (full south perimeter upgrade in one stage) or consistently knock off 1 simple diamond EVERY year - rolling the timing of the design and construction along so that actual construction of the subsequent interchange starts the following year even while the previous one is finishing up. Only then will competition start to come into the market/local companies grow to serve the existing.

I think there's a misconception that there is a construction racket here in Manitoba. Last year it is common knowledge that the majority of roadwork / general contractors actually lost money or had massively reduced profit margins. No matter what people think of the free market, unless there is incentive ie: profit to be made here, there is no reason for companies to become ultra-efficient and grow to support the massive scale that is needed to bid a St Mary's interchange at a price even remotely comparable to other markets that are spending big money on new and existing infrastructure. There's a reason Flatiron was a one and done with the 101/59 interchange, their "high numbers" didn't translate into anything but headaches for them and deciding to go back to markets where they can churn out higher volumes without having to head up to the barren wasteland of Manitoba to complete the first overdesigned interchange in how many years?

My guess is there is an attempt at your suggestion of sequential major projects. The original province announments for pth3/100 was to start in 2023, and now they are all changed to start in 2024, likely coinciding with the delay in getting St Marys going. I can imagine a 3rd interchange will be announced as an election promise in next year's campaign.

[pacman]

Originally Posted by WildCake

My guess is there is an attempt at your suggestion of sequential major projects. The original province announments for pth3/100 was to start in 2023, and now they are all changed to start in 2024, likely coinciding with the delay in getting St Marys going. I can imagine a 3rd interchange will be announced as an election promise in next year's campaign.

I agree that there is a half-hearted attempt at the appearance of sequential major projects, but the reality is that even going by the PC's suggested timeline we won't see a fully built out ultimate design south perimeter for decades, nevermind the St Norbert or Headingly bypasses. That is because instead of treating the whole south perimeter as one single mega-project, they are divvying it into countless smaller projects and knocking things off on a checklist instead of tackling it all at once. Obviously money is not endless, but the chances of getting billion dollar mega-project funding from the federal government greatly increase with a bigger scale instead of 25, 50, or even 100 million dollar projects.

In the absence of that, there is absolutely nothing preventing the province from building simple new diamond or similar interchanges at Pipeline, Wenzel, Gunn, etc... one year at a time concurrently with the south perimeter projects. We had historical low interest rates and a federal government wanting to spend money, but instead we got more traffic lights. Everytime people question this there are only "ya-buts" in response. We can't do this yet because of this, and if we do that then we gotta do this, let's do another study, and nothing gets done for decades. I'm sorry but the leadership and political will in this province are the things that are really holding us back.

Edit: This has nothing to do with any political stripes, my frustration is with anyone who has been in power and refused to look big picture given the opportunity. All political parties and governments in Manitoba in my lifetime have failed.

[rrskylar]

[QUOTE=WildCake;9691952]

Originally Posted by Wpgstvsouth94

Just cause they're not blasting rock, doesn't mean the geology doesn't suck.

You're a short jog from the Red River. Prime clay/gumbo territory. Pretty sure you need to dig deeper and need more aggregate base to have a solid foundation on roadwork.

Plus all the road realignment and traffic management.

They built up land and let it settle for a few years on the #101-#59 cloverleaf and sections still sunk a few years after work was finally completed! Gumbo sucks

[harls]

Originally Posted by DavefromSt.Vital

^ A friend commented yesterday re: Highway 23..."They are working on both sides of Ninette. On the east side of Ninette they have from close to Ninette to just past Belmont either gravel ready for paving or paved with a couple of layers of asphalt. On the west side of Ninette they have completed from just west of Highway 18 almost to Highway 10. I would say they have not done any work about 5 miles from Highway 10 then there’s about 5 miles of gravel that was being prepped for paving and then there is one or two layers of asphalt on the rest of it. When I was stopped by the flagger waiting to be piloted through the gravel section he came up and open the passenger door and we chatted for a while and I found out that they will be doing a third layer on everything once it is all complete and they still have to do all of the entrances to the roads kind of you know, level those off. So the work is progressing quite nicely and it is oh so nice to drive on."

Great to hear, Dave!

[WildCake]

[QUOTE=rrskylar;9692199]

Originally Posted by WildCake

They built up land and let it settle for a few years on the #101-#59 cloverleaf and sections still sunk a few years after work was finally completed! Gumbo sucks

Yea, at least those repairs were covered by the builders under warranty.

[WildCake]

Originally Posted by pacman

I agree that there is a half-hearted attempt at the appearance of sequential major projects, but the reality is that even going by the PC's suggested timeline we won't see a fully built out ultimate design south perimeter for decades, nevermind the St Norbert or Headingly bypasses. That is because instead of treating the whole south perimeter as one single mega-project, they are divvying it into countless smaller projects and knocking things off on a checklist instead of tackling it all at once. Obviously money is not endless, but the chances of getting billion dollar mega-project funding from the federal government greatly increase with a bigger scale instead of 25, 50, or even 100 million dollar projects.

In the absence of that, there is absolutely nothing preventing the province from building simple new diamond or similar interchanges at Pipeline, Wenzel, Gunn, etc... one year at a time concurrently with the south perimeter projects. We had historical low interest rates and a federal government wanting to spend money, but instead we got more traffic lights. Everytime people question this there are only "ya-buts" in response. We can't do this yet because of this, and if we do that then we gotta do this, let's do another study, and nothing gets done for decades. I'm sorry but the leadership and political will in this province are the things that are really holding us back.

Edit: This has nothing to do with any political stripes, my frustration is with anyone who has been in power and refused to look big picture given the opportunity. All political parties and governments in Manitoba in my lifetime have failed.

Yea even the NDP before the current PCs didn't do much other than promise 4 projects in their dying breath, and the decade overdue 59/101.

I agree with your sentiment that it would be much easier to get the feds involved with a mega project.

Maybe if they truncate the south perimeter to "southeast perimeter" for St Annes, 59 reconfig, and Symington, then I guess "South South Perimeter highway " for kenaston, 330, pembina reconfig, and St Nob bypass.