Winnipeg Roads & Infrastructure

[steveosnyder]

Originally Posted by Bdog

The area around St. Vital Mall is about as complete as you can get (although maybe not in the form some urbanists would like). Within a 2 km radius of the mall, there are several schools (including french and high schools), doctors, dentists, and all the retail you could ask for. There are offices, banks, services, anchor stores, a hotel, parks. There are all housing tenures and types (from low income rentals, to condos, to seniors housing... to single family homes, to townhouses and mid-rise apartments). There is also access to several bike paths, and many major bus routes. Not too sure how much more complete a small area can get, except maybe heavy industry... Either way, people still need to commute, and go to other areas of the city.

Sorry, perhaps complete isn't the right word... maybe less automobile oriented would be a better phrase. I agree people in a suburb will more than likely need a car some times, but it seems that how things are built now they need them every time they leave their houses. Even though those places are close, I'm willing to bet that most people who do live close still drive.

From personal experience, I lived just off Riverbend for a while and I still drove to St. Vital Mall when I needed something. And this is coming from someone who likes walking and biking...

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by steveosnyder

I would love to see more interchanges, but I don't think this is a reality in Winnipeg. We need to find a different solution that is more realistic.

As I said earlier people need to be willing to change their patterns. Would eliminating left turns at Bishop and Dakota and forcing the left turns to occur using a full interchange at Bishop an St Marys really be that big of a hardship if both intersections could be made free flowing which would likely increase their overall capacity to move traffic? Would elminating the River Rd corssing of Bishop and giving Minnetonka residents a left turn replacement in the form of a u-turn/left hand merge lane to Bishop really be "isolating" the community and "forcing them to use St Marys"?

The answer is not replacing every intersection with a full interchange, instead we need a mix of the following:

- further limiting access to major streets where regional collectors are in place (Portage Ave comes to mind);

- building some limited access grade seperations, including a mix of "no left turn"/right hand yields and full diamonds

- full interchanges at key intersections.

- some outside the box thinking, ie my suggestion on how to address River Rd and Bishop.

If the general consensus is we want free flowing streets in Winnipeg which will likely mean reduced driving times people to look beyond the "me" impact and instead say "that is a change I could live with".

[steveosnyder]

Originally Posted by CoryB

If the general consensus is we want free flowing streets in Winnipeg which will likely mean reduced driving times people to look beyond the "me" impact and instead say "that is a change I could live with".

I think I said this before -- when you piss in someone elses backyard go ahead, but if you piss in my backyard, lookout.

The person who lives in the area sees the inconvenience whereas the person who commutes through sees the hardship. Think of how many people would get mad if, say Taylor lost its intersection from Kenaston. People who drive through would be happy because it would stop a bottleneck, but people who live there would be like "no fricken way". The same thing would happen here.

[bomberjet]

All very good points.

The way I see things with the new MIT program. Is the City should be applying for say $10M-$15M per year and do one of the minor interchanges (diamonds) each and every year. $20M-$30M (50/50 cost shared program) per year should be more than enough to get a good number of the projects done. Like say a flyover at Dakota and Bishop. Or a diamond at Lag and Reenders. Then the rest of the province would still have $10M-$15M per year for other projects. I don't think thats out of line since half the population of Manitoba lives and uses the road system in Winnipeg. It's not Perimeteritis, it's just reality.

All the major interchanges, Bishop and Lag, Lag and Fermor, etc, would need to be funded by conventional means. Ie: begging the feds for money.

[bomberjet]

Had a look through and found this one. Looks like MD Steele will be putting up the fly-over at Bishop and kenaston.
http://www.journalofcommerce.com/cgi...egion=prairies

Bid Results
MD Steele Construction Ltd, 193 Henlow Bay, Winnipeg MB R3Y 1G4, Phone: 204-488-7070, Fax: 204-488-2772 $14,477,000
Gateway Const & Eng Ltd, 434 Archibald St, Winnipeg MB R2J 0X5, Phone: 204-233-8550, Fax: 204-231-0711 $15,444,709
PCL Constructors Canada Inc, 1540 Gamble Place, PO Box 1066, Winnipeg MB R3C 2X4, Phone: 204-949-8900, Fax: 204-287-2375 $16,109,526

So based on the $15M number for that fly-over. doesn't seem unreasonable that could be the price for other bridges of a similar nature, say a diamond interchange. The Kenaston fly-over is quite long actually, due to the future plans for a stack interchange there.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

All very good points.

The way I see things with the new MIT program. Is the City should be applying for say $10M-$15M per year and do one of the minor interchanges (diamonds) each and every year. $20M-$30M (50/50 cost shared program) per year should be more than enough to get a good number of the projects done. Like say a flyover at Dakota and Bishop. Or a diamond at Lag and Reenders. Then the rest of the province would still have $10M-$15M per year for other projects. I don't think thats out of line since half the population of Manitoba lives and uses the road system in Winnipeg. It's not Perimeteritis, it's just reality.

Hopefully the bulk of the money spent outside Winnipeg gets focused on elminiating at-grade intersections on the major four-lane highways. For example, on Hwy 59 between the Perimeter and Bird's Hill Park alone there are three at-grade intersections. Between Winnipeg and Emerson the number is crazy high and its even worse on the TransCanada Highway. Add in that I am unsure who is responsible for the Perimter the City or the Province and that number could really shot through the roof.

Long term inside Winnipeg if Bishop, Cheif Peagus Trail, Lag and Route 90 could all be made exclusively free flowing we would be pretty close to the original vision of an inner ring road. A major issue for Route 90 north of Ness though is that it has far too much commerical access direct to the street and would likely need access roads on both sides to truly address.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by CoryB

A major issue for Route 90 north of Ness though is that it has far too much commerical access direct to the street and would likely need access roads on both sides to truly address.

That would be ideal, but I don't think there is room for that.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by Riverman

That would be ideal, but I don't think there is room for that.

Minus a lane for free flowing traffic on Route 90 and take off some frontage from the properities in the area to seperate out the access road. So between Sasketchewan and Ellice you have two lanes free flowing and access roads on each side. The access roads could move closer to the road and become merge lanes. Route 90 would then in theory be raised at the cross streets and the access roads would double as on/off ramps. It could be made to work but is incredibly tight and would need some solid traffic studies to back it up as it would drop capacity from four lanes to two but making them free flowing might be a solid enough tradeoff to handle the change.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by CoryB

Hopefully the bulk of the money spent outside Winnipeg gets focused on elminiating at-grade intersections on the major four-lane highways. For example, on Hwy 59 between the Perimeter and Bird's Hill Park alone there are three at-grade intersections. Between Winnipeg and Emerson the number is crazy high and its even worse on the TransCanada Highway. Add in that I am unsure who is responsible for the Perimter the City or the Province and that number could really shot through the roof.

Are you meaning any at-grade intersection, or high-traffic intersections that bottleneck? I drove 75 for two years daily from about 10 km north of the border into the city during both rush hours and I can't think of any place I'd put an interchange, it just isn't that busy with people crossing east-west at any point. Would be nice to by-pass Morris, but that's a minor inconvenience and probably an economic battle. IMO there are tons of highway improvements that need to be made in the province before anything like this is considered.

I'd much rather twin 59 south and one of the highways north of the city (8 or 9, if not both), or at least add some passing lanes as a cheap fix. Highways 12 and 52 are also roads that are brutal considering the (relative) large amount of traffic they see.

[bomberjet]

All those mile road crossings should be closed and funnelled to a diamond interchange every 5 miles. Or wherever there is a somewhat busier intersection. Manitoba is supposed to be a shipping hub but we have combines, etc. crossing the major link to the US.

[steveosnyder]

Apparently the Infrastructure committee of council was discussing traffic patterns around the area of River and St. Mary's.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/CLKDMIS/ViewD...pw/2013/m12955

Now I didn't know this, but in the morning there is "No Left 07:00-09:00" at St. Mary's northbound onto River westbound. So, that intersection of River and Bishop Grandin only services the residence. In the report the City calls River a regional street, but then restricts movement on it like it's a residential street...

Make up your mind traffic engineers. If it's regional you should allow traffic to flow and turning from St. Mary's, if it's residential collector it shouldn't intersect an expressway.

[JamieDavid Exchange]

City is repaving SB Kenaston between Corydon and Grant today. Guess the whole redevelopment of widening Kenaston is far, far, far off in the future now.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by steveosnyder

Apparently the Infrastructure committee of council was discussing traffic patterns around the area of River and St. Mary's.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/CLKDMIS/ViewD...pw/2013/m12955

Now I didn't know this, but in the morning there is "No Left 07:00-09:00" at St. Mary's northbound onto River westbound. So, that intersection of River and Bishop Grandin only services the residence. In the report the City calls River a regional street, but then restricts movement on it like it's a residential street...

Make up your mind traffic engineers. If it's regional you should allow traffic to flow and turning from St. Mary's, if it's residential collector it shouldn't intersect an expressway.

So how do ambulances get to our local hospital (Victoria General) then? That is a busy intersection and you would choke St. Mary's Road to death (it's a parking lot much of the time as it is) if you forced thousands of residents of Pulberry and Riel to drive all the way out to St. Mary's and make two awkward turns before doubling back down Bishop Grandin. Maybe they could tinker with the timing or structure of the intersection?

[Riverman]

Good article by Mr. Galston on the consequences of not building expressways.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/loc...224751502.html

[armorand93]

And the money for this is where...?

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Good article by Mr. Galston on the consequences of not building expressways.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/loc...224751502.html

Thanks River, G nailed it. Streets like Henderson, Pembina, St. Mary's functioned well when the city was 500K but now with the city approaching 800K these roads cannot handle the traffic volume nor were they intended to.

Seems to me there was a complete lack of planning or at least planning for the future to accommodate any type of growth, both the politicians and planners going back 30 years failed us when it comes to infrastructure growth.

[cllew]

I would say more the politicians of the pre unicity era are to blame.

The Miles McDonnell alumni website has time lines and you can see where the city of Winnipeg and/or metro administration had recommended road or bridge improvements, but there was no agreement from all the affected suburbs to put money into it.

The RM of North Kildonan was bad for that as they would always say they "would never benefit" from any investment in major road or bridge upgrades built south of them in East Kildonan or Winnipeg

[steveosnyder]

Originally Posted by Andy6

So how do ambulances get to our local hospital (Victoria General) then? That is a busy intersection and you would choke St. Mary's Road to death (it's a parking lot much of the time as it is) if you forced thousands of residents of Pulberry and Riel to drive all the way out to St. Mary's and make two awkward turns before doubling back down Bishop Grandin. Maybe they could tinker with the timing or structure of the intersection?

I don't think the intersection of River and Bishop will ever be closed. That being said, your safety argument about ambulance calls not being able to get in at River is somewhat ironic seeing that the intersection is actually one of the least safe intersections in the City and is responsible for a lot of the calls in the area in the first place.

That post was trying to point out the inconsistancy in the applications at the City's traffic engineering department, much like RGalston's printed article. Streets should act like Streets, Roads should act like Roads. Right now, River acts as both. It is local, with residence right off of it, but it connects to a major expressway, something that is inconsistant with the proper rules.

The word “street” is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for “road”… but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road’s main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction

from wikipedia

[Cyro]

City seeks input on plan to ease Polo Park traffic
Open house tonight to discuss project

Warning Big WFP image

City of Winnipeg The plan calls for extending St. Matthews Avenue, widening existing portions of the avenue, improving St. James Street as well as the Ellice-St. James intersection.


The city plans to hold an open house at Canad Inns Polo Park tonight from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. to hear what Winnipeggers have to say about its infrastructure-improvement plan for the busy shopping district.

The plan, which would involve two summers of construction, calls for extending St. Matthews Avenue from Empress Street to Route 90, widening existing portions of St. Matthews in the area, improving St. James Street from Maroons Road to Ellice Avenue and improving the Ellice-St. James intersection

Con't @ Article/Image Source

[esquire]

Given that Silver Avenue will likely be connected to CCW in the next few years, that St. Matthews extension will have a key role in turning Silver/St. Matthews into a major route linking west Winnipeg to downtown... it will essentially become the only real alternative to Portage Avenue for E-W traffic north of the Assiniboine.

It does make you wonder why St. Matthews was choked off with all of those bump-outs that reduce it to a 2-lane road, though.