Winnipeg | Osborne Village & Fort Rouge

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by michelleb

"This method of indicating that pedestrians aren’t supposed to cross a specific leg of an intersection is used at several locations throughout the city."

Every time I encounter one of these people-hating intersections I wish I could personally get the traffic engineer(s) fired and replaced by someone who actually travels around the city on foot/bike/with a stroller/wheelchair.

This kind of sneaky shit that public works pulls at the last minute without telling anyone is really bad for PR and makes residents feel like they're in an adversarial relationship with their city.

You can still cross at the north side of the intersection where it's much, much safer. Like 20 feet away. Who cares if you can't cross on both sides? I go through this intersection all the time. There are rarely people crossing. It's not like it was shut down like Portage and Main was 40+ years ago.

Sheesh. All this vitriol over nothing.

[biguc]

Another concession to drivers that makes life worse as a pedestrian isn't nothing. It's part of a pattern that makes the city worse.

[Riverman]

This change was done to make the intersection safer for people. As for concessions to cars, 95% of people in Winnipeg drive to get around. And those cars have people in them.

[bomberjet]

Another embarrassing event. How about, all the cars stop, and they let the people walk. If no pedestrians are there (which is likely to be the case most of the time), the cars can have their dual left turn lane. Which personally is stupid as it one of those left turn lanes but also straight left turn lanes.

What they could do is either 1.) lengthen the single left turn lane further back around the curve if they need to, or 2.) re-configure the existing set-up to have 1 bloody lane. But they'd probably have some excuse about property lines, it's too expensive, or something else ridiculous. (you can tell I've had enough of this shit both in my personal and professional life).

Originally Posted by OTA in Winnipeg

You can still cross at the north side of the intersection where it's much, much safer. Like 20 feet away. Who cares if you can't cross on both sides? I go through this intersection all the time. There are rarely people crossing. It's not like it was shut down like Portage and Main was 40+ years ago.

Sheesh. All this vitriol over nothing.

So instead of crossing the street 1 time, you need to cross it 3 times. That's worse for everyone involved.

[trueviking]

I love when making pedestrians an afterthought in our city is justified with, it’s for their own good.

Car first design is our city’s thing.

Yet another example of neighbourhoods being designed for the priorities of those who want to drive through them instead of those who live in them.

[sleepyeyed]

it's getting very difficult to remain hopeful about Winnipeg. the car culture is reaching insane peaks

if they were making these changes while turning Osborne St into a pedestrian friendly environment, sure. but it seems like the city's plan is to ram a semi freeway through every urban neighbourhood.

[ywgwalk]

Originally Posted by sleepyeyed

but it seems like the city's plan is to ram a semi freeway through every urban neighbourhood.

That's my thing, downtown is full of areas that have all the bad of a freeway without the actual freeway (this isn't to say I want a freeway though).

- Pioneer/William Stephenson
- Westbrook from Pioneer to Portage Ave E
- St. Mary at Colony
- Portage and Main, of course
- Norwood Bridge
- Smith/Notre Dame/King

list goes on. Add in all the places in the downtown with highway guardrails and there's the other areas that were "modernized" 70 years ago to the detriment of the street level.

[thebasketballgeek]

Yea the car commute numbers are just going to increase for the next decade until the Orange and Blue lines are completed and the AT Paths actually go along our stroads so they can be actual streets (hopefully fully separated but with the disaster known as Pembina HWY I doubt it). As long as more subdivisions at the edge of the city are being constructed there will be more car usage, traffic and infrastructure repairs required unless the city decentralizes from the core. 10-20 years from now is when our commute patterns should start shifting to higher public transportation and active transproration uses.

I’m as optimistic as any resident in this city can be and understand they have some long term objectives to combat these issues, but sometimes it’s excruciatingly hard to be hopeful. Especially since the solutions and suggested implementations are screaming right in front of the city.

[borkborkbork]

Originally Posted by Riverman

This change was done to make the intersection safer for people. As for concessions to cars, 95% of people in Winnipeg drive to get around. And those cars have people in them.

winnipeggers drive everywhere, so we prioritize vehicle traffic at intersections, so winnipeggers drive everywhere

rinse, lather, repeat.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by sleepyeyed

it's getting very difficult to remain hopeful about Winnipeg. the car culture is reaching insane peaks

if they were making these changes while turning Osborne St into a pedestrian friendly environment, sure. but it seems like the city's plan is to ram a semi freeway through every urban neighbourhood.

This is because Winnipeg did not build any freeways. Every city Winnipeg's size or larger has them. No freeways spur the need for freeway-like roads through the city. Why is this so hard to understand?

[ywgwalk]

Originally Posted by Riverman

No freeways spur the need for freeway-like roads through the city. Why is this so hard to understand?

Tell that to all the European cities that either never had them or are ripping them out.

[ue]

Originally Posted by ywgwalk

Tell that to all the European cities that either never had them or are ripping them out.

European cities have invested heavily in transit, cycling, and walking. Thus, large proportions of their populations get around without the need for the automobile, and there was no need to widen major routes into stroads. Winnipeg has not properly invested in active modes of transport for quite some time, therefore everyone drives, as it is the least awful way of getting around. This isn't hard.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

winnipeggers drive everywhere, so we prioritize vehicle traffic at intersections, so winnipeggers drive everywhere

rinse, lather, repeat.

What is the alternative? Will it be 15 minutes in the car or an hour to an hour and a half on multible busses?

I used to frequently drive from my home in Elmwood to Waverly West, sometimes twice a day. Is this even possible on a bus?

Winnipeg is a car city, that is how it was built and it will likely stay that way. Best to learn to live with it.

Oh and it's lather, rinse, repeat.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Riverman

What is the alternative? Will it be 15 minutes in the car or an hour to an hour and a half on multible busses?

I used to frequently drive from my home in Elmwood to Waverly West sometimes, twice a day. Is this even possible on a bus?

Oh and it's lather, rinse, repeat.

Of course that trip is awful to do via transit, the city has approved sprawling, car-centric neighbourhoods for decades while divesting from transit. Therefore everybody drives. It's induced demand. If transit were properly funded and we reoriented our city around it (and cycling, walking) then driving rates would start to fall, especially if it is made less convenient (less lanes, less parking, slower speed limits, etc).

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by ue

Of course that trip is awful to do via transit, the city has approved sprawling, car-centric neighbourhoods for decades while divesting from transit. Therefore everybody drives. It's induced demand. If transit were properly funded and we reoriented our city around it (and cycling, walking) then driving rates would start to fall, especially if it is made less convenient (less lanes, less parking, slower speed limits, etc).

I doubt it. It would encourge more businesses, schools, retail etc. to just move further out, or into exurban communities. Making it more difficult for people and commerce to move around is a path to failure in a free society.

[GreyGarden]

Originally Posted by Riverman

I doubt it. It would encourge more businesses, schools, retail etc. to just move further out, or into exurban communities. Making it more difficult for people and commerce to move around is a path to failure in a free society.

I don't think so. The residents in those neighbourhoods need to be serviced.

Winnipeg's suburbs will likely always be bad for car-centric infrastructure and design, and frankly I don't really care. The problem, in my opinion, is that our inner city and core neighbourhood's are even set up with car-centric infrastructure. Sage Creek and Bridgewater can be designed around cars, but Osborne Village, River Heights, Wolseley, downtown, the Exchange, the West End, West Broadway, the North End, Saint Boniface, South Osborne and the others I missed should have good walking, biking, and transit infrastructure and service. Driving in those areas shouldn't be particularly pleasant. My favourite neighbourhoods in the country are all hell to drive in.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Riverman

I doubt it. It would encourge more businesses, schools, retail etc. to just move further out, or into exurban communities. Making it more difficult for people and commerce to move around is a path to failure in a free society.

Except it would not be about making it more difficult to get around. As I said, if driving was a bit less convenient so that transportation modes were more equitable, and therefore walking, taking transit, and cycling were properly invested in such that they were as, if not more, convenient than driving, then people would be able to get around the city just as well as they do now, but without all of the bad aspects of car-centric planning. You forget that cities used to be designed like this and were intentionally engineered by planners, developers, the oil industry, and governments to be car-centric. It wasn't a choice of free will and the only reason why so many people drive now is because it is the only convenient way to get around and we have been indoctrinated with car culture.

[borkborkbork]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Winnipeg is a car city, that is how it was built and it will likely stay that way. Best to learn to live with it.

Oh and it's lather, rinse, repeat.

I think the thing I find most depressing about Winnipeg is the sense of fatalism/ inevitability people have about the urban form.

[biguc]

It's pointless arguing with Riverman; he is, to his car, the boomer equivalent of a 14 year old girl who lives on Tiktok.

But in case anyone actually believes what he's saying...

95% of Winnipeggers do not drive. Small children do not drive cars, even in Winnipeg. 95% isn't even an accurate representation of mode-share in Winnipeg in general, and especially not in the neighbourhood in question. I'd be surprised if even a large minority of trips in Osborne Village were in cars. Like Viking said, this is a change for the benefit of people driving through the neighbourhood, not for the people who live there.

If anyone cared about making the intersection safer, maybe they'd get rid of the things that make it dangerous: cars.

Many cities larger than Winnipeg don't have freeways. This one is easily falsifiable; just look on google maps. Even if this was true, nobody who makes this argument has ever explained how freeways in the suburbs are supposed to fix traffic in the city. Nobody is driving out of their way to use River ave, just like nobody would drive out of their way to use an improved Bishop Grandin.

Winnipeg wasn't built as a "car city". It was built around streetcars. It's rotted since the city ripped them out to try to become a car city. If it could change before, it could change again. Being one thing doesn't mean it's right to be that thing. Winnipeg is a place people leave (ironically, including Riverman himself) for myriad reasons; that it's been hijacked and run into the ground by suburban drivers is a big one.

As a corollary to the last point, making the city centre harder to drive around in wouldn't drive people away. It would make the city more liveable, which would invite people to stay. The status quo drives many of us to other cities entirely--cities where it's harder to drive around in the city centre.

Finally, if you're repeating the process indefinitely, as the idiom implies, the order in which you rinse or lather doesn't matter. I don't know how good a lather you'll get in dry hair, but it'll work itself out on the second iteration.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by biguc

Many cities larger than Winnipeg don't have freeways. This one is easily falsifiable; just look on google maps. Even if this was true, nobody who makes this argument has ever explained how freeways in the suburbs are supposed to fix traffic in the city. Nobody is driving out of their way to use River ave, just like nobody would drive out of their way to use an improved Bishop Grandin.

My argument to this point is, and I am a prime example of this...I now choose to drive through the city than use Lagimodiere and Bishop (our closest thing to a freeway) because they have gotten so bad and slow due to poor design. So yes, people do drive out of there way to use alternate roads. I would challenge anyone to find a major city on the planet without freeways - Rome, Paris, London, Athens etc. Even the city of Venice has a freeway that runs right to the old island where there are no cars.

I think we need a balance of both. I think proper highway infrastructure and efficient transit can lead to narrower more walk-able streets in the inner city. Right now Winnipeg has none of them. I believe you are in Berlin (or Germany at least) likely the king of highway infrastructure in Europe. Obviously you have great cities there, but due to a balance in infrastructure.
Ancient city centre design also plays a huge part with narrow, walk-able streets.

We have a long way to go, but we need to look at the whole picture. Walk-able city people want no cars, car centric people want big fast streets, cycling people want bike paths.