Winnipeg Roads & Infrastructure

[Authentic_City]

^oh yes, that’s right, CN sold the bridge to Katz, not the city. The city missed an opportunity to buy the bridge and rail line lands for RT/AT. Not much use in buying the bridge now I guess. Crazy that it’s not properly insured. Is it effectively abandoned? Maybe the city will seize it someday.

[cllew]

Originally Posted by Authentic_City

^oh yes, that’s right, CN sold the bridge to Katz, not the city. The city missed an opportunity to buy the bridge and rail line lands for RT/AT. Not much use in buying the bridge now I guess. Crazy that it’s not properly insured. Is it effectively abandoned? Maybe the city will seize it someday.

Since the potential problem with the wood approach spans in 2009 there has not been anything in the media about the status of the site.

The other stumbling block is there is a major Bell fiber line that runs along the former rail right of way under the railway river bridge deck. I believe that Mr Katz said he was going to build around the conduit as the cost to move it was very high.

[bodaggin]

You have to stand in awe at the departmental disjointedness of CoW.

They literally painted fresh road lines, over 1 foot potholes, 2hrs before a thunderstorm.

The level of "not my job" is astounding. Fix. The. Potholes.

[WildCake]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

You have to stand in awe at the departmental disjointedness of CoW.

They literally painted fresh road lines, over 1 foot potholes, 2hrs before a thunderstorm.

The level of "not my job" is astounding. Fix. The. Potholes.

Sorry but what was the paint truck crew supposed to do? Fill the pothole by dumping a can paint? It certainly is "not their job" because it isn't their job and don't have the tools for the pothole fixing. And IIRC, there's only one striping truck for the city so they have to keep moving to stay on top of all the road painting needs.

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by WildCake

Sorry but what was the paint truck crew supposed to do? Fill the pothole by dumping a can paint? It certainly is "not their job" because it isn't their job and don't have the tools for the pothole fixing. And IIRC, there's only one striping truck for the city so they have to keep moving to stay on top of all the road painting needs.

If there's no road to drive on, painting lines is pointless. This goes for all roads. There's still potholes everywhere. You don't paint lines until potholes are fixed.

Potholes happen every spring. We shouldn't need to "call to report a pothole". We don't need to call every time it snows, to tell the the city to plow our street. Plowing happens automatically.

The same should happen for potholes.

Every spring, when it dries up, re-allocate the entire public works team, parks team, and any other laborors for potholes. Do a pothole drive. All hands on deck, fix all potholes, start with P1, P2, then P3, just like snow removal. Go until it's done.

It will be done within days then everyone can get back to their regular work painting lines and mowing blvds. This neglectful pothole idiocy needs to end. Enough.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

Potholes happen every spring. We shouldn't need to "call to report a pothole". We don't need to call every time it snows, to tell the the city to plow our street. Plowing happens automatically.

The same should happen for potholes.

Every spring, when it dries up, re-allocate the entire public works team, parks team, and any other laborors for potholes. Do a pothole drive. All hands on deck, fix all potholes, start with P1, P2, then P3, just like snow removal. Go until it's done.

Funny, this is exactly what I have been thinking for years. They systematically plow the whole city in 3 or 4 days. Even if pothole filling takes twice as long, I feel that this system should work the same.

Right now it seems so random and they miss so many.

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by Biff

Funny, this is exactly what I have been thinking for years. They systematically plow the whole city in 3 or 4 days. Even if pothole filling takes twice as long, I feel that this system should work the same.

Right now it seems so random and they miss so many.

They don't even check potholes now. The ones in that pic have been there for 2 months. They rely solely on reports. Like can you imagine if we dispatched snow removal based on reports? It'd be a complete clusterF. You'd need a 10k person call center. Stupid.

Do a full and thorough sweep of every street when it dries up and be done with it. Do another smaller one a month later in case anything sprouted up. Sure, if anything got missed, report it. But reports will go to near 0.

They need take a little bit of pride and see the forest for the trees as a dept. Make fixing potholes a cultural thing like sandbagging floods was.

[bomberjet]

There's basically zero pride in most of the work force out there. Just get the paycheck.

[cllew]

Snow plowing for the most part is done with contracted equipment (loaders, dump trucks, graders) that is used for road building in the summer so contractors bid on it to make the finance payments in the winter.

To properly patch there would have to be a dedicated fleet of patching equipment that would sit idle from around end of October to May. Idle time would match the shutdown of the privately owned hot mix plants. City got out of the hot mix business when they closed down the city plant near HSC

A dedicated Python 5000 hot patcher comes in just over the 1/2 million dollar mark to purchase. Public Works was going to test one in the 2023 road season but I don't know what the results were. At that time it was thought by "outside experts" that Winnipeg would need 3 units to tackle the potholes.

Doing a recycled mill and fill road train would probably be a better solution to bad sections of pavement but again its not an inexpensive process.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

There's basically zero pride in most of the work force out there. Just get the paycheck.

Myself and others pride ourselves in a job well done.

[bomberjet]

I see the level of talent out there. Lazy, don't care, no pride in their work or City. Just sit in the machine and get paid.

I draw lines on paper and get awards for it.

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by cllew

Snow plowing for the most part is done with contracted equipment (loaders, dump trucks, graders) that is used for road building in the summer so contractors bid on it to make the finance payments in the winter.

To properly patch there would have to be a dedicated fleet of patching equipment that would sit idle from around end of October to May. Idle time would match the shutdown of the privately owned hot mix plants. City got out of the hot mix business when they closed down the city plant near HSC

A dedicated Python 5000 hot patcher comes in just over the 1/2 million dollar mark to purchase. Public Works was going to test one in the 2023 road season but I don't know what the results were. At that time it was thought by "outside experts" that Winnipeg would need 3 units to tackle the potholes.

Doing a recycled mill and fill road train would probably be a better solution to bad sections of pavement but again its not an inexpensive process.

You need 2 guys, a truck, a shovel, and a tamper (compactor if you're generous). That's it. The same way they do now, only multiplied by 1,000 with all hands on deck.

The city has hundreds of trucks and 1-ton duallys. No extra equipment, workforce, or tendering nonsense is needed.

Stop making such a simple thing sooooo complicated. It's a hole. Put stuff in hole.

As for Mill + Fill, yes. A dedicated in-house Mill + Fill rig running round the clock could resurface the entire city (7,200 lane km) every 2-3yrs. Just 1 rig. But potholes are lower hanging fruit, do the easy stuff first.

[bon_vivant]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

Stop making such a simple thing sooooo complicated. It's a hole. Put stuff in hole.

YES!!!

[The Jabroni]

If only we have somewhat of a better funding model for our roads...

EDIT: On a side note, what is the status of Archibald between Marion and Plinguet? We're several days into July now and not a single construction crew or equipment has finished up the bike paths on the east side/northbound side of Archibald, along with some finishing touches with paving into the parking lots of businesses, side streets, and finish up the curb island right at the turning lane going into eastbound Marion from Archibald. All those barricades are still in place of those curbs. They went into mid-November last year to finish up the curbs and paving Archibald.

CN recently did work on the crossing right by First Canada and Messier St.

[cllew]

Originally Posted by The Jabroni

If only we have somewhat of a better funding model for our roads...

EDIT: On a side note, what is the status of Archibald between Marion and Plinguet? We're several days into July now and not a single construction crew or equipment has finished up the bike paths on the east side/northbound side of Archibald, along with some finishing touches with paving into the parking lots of businesses, side streets, and finish up the curb island right at the turning lane going into eastbound Marion from Archibald. All those barricades are still in place of those curbs. They went into mid-November last year to finish up the curbs and paving Archibald.

CN recently did work on the crossing right by First Canada and Messier St.

Manitoba Hydro was recently working in the area re-conductoring their overhead lines/removing bad poles as part of the multi year Dawson Road terminal upgrade project. They were parking their heavy trucks and cable trailers on the area where the remaining work is required. Better to have them park on that and not new pavement.

Also I don't know if the rain is causing issues with work starting as I think that there are specs for moisture content in the sub base before work starts.

[blueandgoldguy]

There are some real nasty potholes in the river heights area on many local streets. Some are so big and long I don't think a quick fill would do any much good other than kicking the can down the road for a few months. These require a little more of an extensive patch job.

There was a really bad 1 block or so stretch on Grosvenor which contained both small and large potholes to the point you couldn't really even avoid them. You really had to slow your vehicle down to 10 km/hr and drive right through them. That's one example where you would need to asphalt an 200 - 300 foot stretch or rip up that section of road and start from scratch.

There is also that section of Grant close to Grant Park shopping centre that is down to one lane each way as the other lanes are being fixed. The only problem is the single lanes remaining are full of potholes so you can't drive around them, only slow down...and if you don't you risk serious damage to your vehicle.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

I see the level of talent out there. Lazy, don't care, no pride in their work or City. Just sit in the machine and get paid.

I draw lines on paper and get awards for it.

You're doing what every generation since the beginning of time does- pointing to the younger generation, and accusing them of being lazy, not working hard enough,etc. The irony is that the workforce is competitive as ever, and there is no evidence that today's young people work any less hard than I did during their age in the late 90s/early 2000s.


This reminds me of Grandpa Simpson complaining about today's youth, and talking about putting an onion on his belt in the 20s lol.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

You have to stand in awe at the departmental disjointedness of CoW.

They literally painted fresh road lines, over 1 foot potholes, 2hrs before a thunderstorm.

The level of "not my job" is astounding. Fix. The. Potholes.

I think a more valid concern, would be what is a person doing in the passing lane of a major Winnipeg road, and judging from the photo, and the angle of the vehicle, taking cell phone pics on the drivers side?

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

I think a more valid concern, would be what is a person doing in the passing lane of a major Winnipeg road, and judging from the photo, and the angle of the vehicle, taking cell phone pics on the drivers side?

Cry harder buddy.

[WinCitySparky]

lol busted well done BD