Winnipeg Construction X

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by dmacc

Unfortunately I feel your view has become warped and overly ideological to the point of being unhealthy for a place to be able to grow. Granted there are other people on here that I feel are on the other side of the pendulum as well. your kind of like a racing horse with blinders on, going a million miles an hour in one direction with no idea or care for whats around you.

Yes, the things you speak of have a lot of value and should be prioritized accordingly. However, they should be prioritized with all the other concerns in mind as well. Neglecting infrastructure that allows for the increased movement of goods and services in a safe manner is as regressive a policy as anything you advocate for.

its a matter of priorities....I don't believe spending billions of dollars to make exiting a highway faster is a good use of our money. I know that's unpopular. I disagree that driving faster makes it safer. I disagree that saving two minutes on a cross country drive when goods and services hit the city significantly affects our economy. I dont't believe that is a good return on investment. I am happy to see studies that prove me wrong.

If we had lots of extra money, maybe it becomes a priority, but as it is, we can grow our economy in many better ways for that amount of money. There are better uses for infrastructure spending than making the perimeter larger. See $7-billion infrastructure deficit. Even if all that money is just about making driving better, there are better uses for it.

I believe the advocacy for this for the most part has nothing to do with goods and services and is more about the knee-jerk positive reaction to all things allowing people to drive faster. The goods and services argument is just a way to justify it.

[EdwardTH]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

I like you and your thoughts, however getting goods to market efficiently is important! bring on massive clover leaf interchanges inside the city (and help me getting to my kids activities on time)!

The most reliable and long-term way to improve traffic flow is increasing transit ridership, not spending billions on cloverleafs....

[esquire]

I would like to see improvements to the Perimeter mainly in the interest of safety. The highway feels quite underbuilt relative to how it's being used.

That said, I don't think the Perimeter's needs are so vast that it means sacrificing transit in the city. The Perimeter needs more tweaks and spot improvements than anything else.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by esquire

You're probably right, but the fact that the default permissible building is basically a 1972 strip mall with anything else including a normal urban building requiring time and money to get special permission from the City is insanity. That's an example of a zoning bylaw that doesn't just not help, but actually harms the city it is supposed to regulate.

Yeah, they could likely get a variance, but I've been asked to see what's possible within the allowable criteria. It really surprised me...here is an example of what it looks like...two storey building.

[esquire]

Absurd. I thought the City did away with all the onerous minimum parking requirements in the inner city.

[Labroco]

Originally Posted by dmacc

Unfortunately I feel your view has become warped and overly ideological to the point of being unhealthy for a place to be able to grow. Granted there are other people on here that I feel are on the other side of the pendulum as well. your kind of like a racing horse with blinders on, going a million miles an hour in one direction with no idea or care for whats around you.

Yes, the things you speak of have a lot of value and should be prioritized accordingly. However, they should be prioritized with all the other concerns in mind as well. Neglecting infrastructure that allows for the increased movement of goods and services in a safe manner is as regressive a policy as anything you advocate for.

No one is really saying safe roads are bad but rather it’s a discussion on how to utilize our limited resources to benefit our City, it’s communities and the people within them. Goods and service will continue to find there way to markets. I saw a fedex boat in the canals of Venice last month doing just fine! They don’t scream for wider canals.

Billions spent on repairing our worn and damaged urban infrastructure along with a successful rapid transit system will create just as many jobs if not more than paving roads into the prairies.

Stop for one moment and think how transformative a $500,000,000 urban infrastructure infusion would impact on the thousands of people using and living in the core of our City. People think nothing of spending that on a bridge or underpass to the fringes of may I say... no where...

This idea of continuing to build a home on prairie grass or farmland filled with stuff from The Brick is just warped...

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by esquire

I would like to see improvements to the Perimeter mainly in the interest of safety. The highway feels quite underbuilt relative to how it's being used.

That said, I don't think the Perimeter's needs are so vast that it means sacrificing transit in the city. The Perimeter needs more tweaks and spot improvements than anything else.

100% agree. I am not advocating against highway improvements. I just don't like the idea of creating what is on the north east perimeter at every interchange. To me that is a colossal waste of money that could be put to so much better use. I don't see the return on that investment, if economics is the argument.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by esquire

Absurd. I thought the City did away with all the onerous minimum parking requirements in the inner city.

Once you leave the downtown boundaries its pretty consistent.

[trueviking]

This also made me laugh...the Urban Infill Area Map....its an area that has slightly reduced requirements for certain things...Its not huge but something....it totally leaves out the rich mature neighbourhoods....f*cking River Heights and Crescentwood totally left out.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by trueviking

so...just doing some site planning and going through the zoning by-laws.

Site is on Portage Avenue, East of Broadway but not downtown. The property is 210 feet deep. 105 feet wide. It's within the Urban Infill Area.

For a building that is personal services like a clinic on the ground floor with office space above, I have to give up 150 feet of the site to parking and can only have a building that is two storeys tall with floors of only 7,000 square feet.

A 22,000 square foot site has to dedicate 15,000 square feet to storing cars - 70% of the site - and the tallest building possible with that amount of parking is two storeys, with small foor plates..

On the biggest street in the city.

That's nuts.

Sounds like the perfect setup for a car dealership.

[trueviking]

another funny one....outside of that infill area, you have to plant at least one shrub every ten feet along the main façade....so a building on Portage Avenue west of Polo Park or on Main Street has to have a little shrub bed between the building and the sidewalk.

here's the diagram.

[esquire]

^ Well obviously. It's like the single, solitary tree in tree's avatar... it has the power to erase the architectural sins of the building.

[EdwardTH]

Originally Posted by trueviking

This also made me laugh...the Urban Infill Area Map....its an area that has slightly reduced requirements for certain things...Its not huge but something....it totally leaves out the rich mature neighbourhoods....f*cking River Heights and Crescentwood totally left out.

Old St B and south Osborne should really have similar standards applied as well...

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Well obviously. It's like the single, solitary tree in tree's avatar... it has the power to erase the architectural sins of the building.

Ha, I never really noticed that one sad tree all by itself. Just adds to the hilarious sadness of the whole building

[trueviking]

I'm starting to fall in love with the absurdity of that building...its like what a kid would draw if you asked him to draw an office building....

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by Labroco

No one is really saying safe roads are bad but rather it’s a discussion on how to utilize our limited resources to benefit our City, it’s communities and the people within them. Goods and service will continue to find there way to markets. I saw a fedex boat in the canals of Venice last month doing just fine! They don’t scream for wider canals.

Billions spent on repairing our worn and damaged urban infrastructure along with a successful rapid transit system will create just as many jobs if not more than paving roads into the prairies.

Stop for one moment and think how transformative a $500,000,000 urban infrastructure infusion would impact on the thousands of people using and living in the core of our City. People think nothing of spending that on a bridge or underpass to the fringes of may I say... no where...

This idea of continuing to build a home on prairie grass or farmland filled with stuff from The Brick is just warped...

I feel saying products will find there way to market so we don't need to improve it is incredibly regressive. The same argument could be placed on anything. Why improve transit, people will find their way to work and school. Why build rapid transit corridors and spend billions to save people a few minutes. You would argue that at every opportunity as regressive. To me the correct answer is they are both regressive, both need to be improved and looked at with an open mind.

[Bdog]

Originally Posted by trueviking

I believe the advocacy for this for the most part has nothing to do with goods and services and is more about the knee-jerk positive reaction to all things allowing people to drive faster. The goods and services argument is just a way to justify it.

Ah yes. If someone is advocating for Perimeter upgrades using goods movement and safety as arguments, they must be disingenuous. They really just want to drive faster!

But, if someone is advocating against the sidewalk narrowing on Main Street and their argument is accessibility, who are we to question what their true motive is. How dare we say that in some cases, they really just care about a superficial urban aesthetic.

[Bdog]

Originally Posted by trueviking

Yeah, they could likely get a variance, but I've been asked to see what's possible within the allowable criteria. It really surprised me...here is an example of what it looks like...two storey building.

If this is really the case, then we can't really fault developers for doing parking rich developments then, can we? If this is really all that can be done a stone's throw from downtown, it sounds like the city's zoning codes are to blame. Is it time for an update?

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by Bdog

Ah yes. If someone is advocating for Perimeter upgrades using goods movement and safety as arguments, they must be disingenuous. They really just want to drive faster!

But, if someone is advocating against the sidewalk narrowing on Main Street and their argument is accessibility, who are we to question what their true motive is. How dare we say that in some cases, they really just care about a superficial urban aesthetic.

Don’t see what one has to do with the other but I stand by my opinion that most people are not really advocating to spend billions because they are passionate about semi-trailers getting out of the city a few minutes faster. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe people are super passionate about the movement of goods.

It’s not a big leap to say that people mostly support things that affect themselves. It’s also not a fringe theory that most people support initiatives that allow them to drive faster. It would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise. The very suggestion that something might slow people down as drivers creates significant opposition. This is completely understandable because we have built a city and lifestyle where everything we do begins and ends with a drive in a car.

I’ve never heard any arguments about ‘urban aesthetic’. If that was a reason to argue for something I would certainly question it as well.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by dmacc

I feel saying products will find there way to market so we don't need to improve it is incredibly regressive. The same argument could be placed on anything. Why improve transit, people will find their way to work and school. Why build rapid transit corridors and spend billions to save people a few minutes. You would argue that at every opportunity as regressive. To me the correct answer is they are both regressive, both need to be improved and looked at with an open mind.

That’s great. I would expect a cost benefit analysis before spending billions of dollars. What is the actual impact of shaving a few minutes off a truck’s transcontinental journey. It would be important to understand what the value is so we can consider if the money would be more economically impactful invested differently.

[trueviking]

There is also a lot of data to show when the design speed of a highway is increased, accidents also increase. The idea that building high speed interchanges increases safety is not necessarily correct. Speed and accident rates are almost always related.

If we really care about safety on the perimeter, by far the most effective solution is to reduce the speed limit to 80, not make the road bigger so we can drive even faster.

But of course we would never do that because it’s not really about safety.