Winnipeg City Transit/Rapid Transit

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by esquire

I wonder why they called it the Rose line... that seems oddly specific. Why not just Red line?

But that said, coming from NE Winnipeg you could just transfer once at P&M.

Rose is odd haha oh well.

If you can get on a lettered route, one transfer. If you need to get on one of the 4xx routes, 2 transfers. It's just an annoyance and part of the deal. Some routes get exceptionally better throughout town, others sacrifice a bit.

Like I said, overall it seems decent and I assume will aide in more efficient utilization of resources.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Rose is odd haha oh well.

If you can get on a lettered route, one transfer. If you need to get on one of the 4xx routes, 2 transfers. It's just an annoyance and part of the deal. Some routes get exceptionally better throughout town, others sacrifice a bit.

Like I said, overall it seems decent and I assume will aide in more efficient utilization of resources.

Looking at the map of NE Winnipeg, there aren't many places that look out of range of one of the major routes that would take you downtown, especially the innermost parts where I'm guessing transit usage will run a bit higher. I suppose like with any transit system there will be some areas that just aren't as well served.

[bomberjet]

Munroe between London and Louelda is where I live. 3 routes go down Munroe now and all 3 go downtown. In the new routing, there's 3 routes and non go downtown. I could walk the 3-4blocks to the N line to prevent the transfer. It's similar for pretty much of all of NK/EK. If you live close to the F/N lines, you're fine. If not you can walk the 3-4 blocks or catch a numbered route.

Overall everywhere in the City will be going to the spine and feeder type thing. So you need to transfer to get downtown. Then it all depends on where you going if you need to transfer again. Which is reasonable I guess.

[ywgwalk]

I believe they were going for colours that were almost identical in french and english. So Rose, Blue, Orange.

[LilZebra]

Originally Posted by esquire

I wonder why they called it the Rose line... that seems oddly specific. Why not just Red line?

But that said, coming from NE Winnipeg you could just transfer once at P&M to get to U of M.

My Mom's name was Rose. Perhaps she influenced the naming (via whisper) from Heaven. When she'd go downtown, she'd take the 66 Grant to go to the Franciscan's chapel. Also my recemtly deceased Aunt Gloria used to live in Transcona. She used to work at downtown Eaton's in Cosmetics.



So there.

[zalf]

Originally Posted by ywgwalk

I believe they were going for colours that were almost identical in french and english. So Rose, Blue, Orange.

This is almost definitely the answer. My first thought was that Rose is easier to distinguish over the radio, but your answer makes more sense to me.

[WinCitySparky]

Originally Posted by Wigglez

I've grown to accept that in most cases in Winnipeg, you need to add at least 15 years onto the timeline for a project when compared to somewhere else.

When they first announced housing is going in at The Forks I started saving for a condo there. That money has since been transferred to my retirement account that wasn't even a concept to me back then... The good news is my retirement fund is looking healthy! I look forward to finally watching those condos go up from my grave.

Hahahahahahahahah

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by pspeid

Personally the time frame bothers me, but the fact that it is BRT doesn't. What is the purpose of rapid transit? I would think it's to move large numbers of people from one part of the city to another quickly, and help reduce the city's carbon footprint. Do busses (especially electric busses) not do that?

Yes, I'm sure LRTs are faster than busses, but they must have their own unique problems as well. As far as optics go I'm sure they seem "sexy", and some folks consider them to be the sign that we're a grown up city in our big-boy pants. But to get the job of moving people done, I can't see how LRTs are so infinitely superior to busses that they are worth the huge extra expense.

Not only are LRT faster they can also move more people. In 24 years Winnipeg metro area will have over a million people, do we expect buses to be able to carry the same amount of people through the city? Maintaining buses is also not necessarily cheaper. Are we going to keep buying longer and longer buses? Union station will be used as a bus terminal.

The time frame for this is also embarrassing. This is really demoralizing news. I bet Hamilton, Quebec city, London Ontario possibly even Victoria and Halifax will have a better transit service then Wpg does by the end of the decade.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Not only are LRT faster they can also move more people. In 24 years Winnipeg metro area will have over a million people, do we expect buses to be able to carry the same amount of people through the city? Maintaining buses is also not necessarily cheaper. Are we going to keep buying longer and longer buses? Union station will be used as a bus terminal.

The only saving grace in this is that the SW transitway up to Union station is mostly grade separated. This can make an easier conversion to rail after our children are all dead.

Originally Posted by Luisito

The time frame for this is also embarrassing. This is really demoralizing news. I bet Hamilton, Quebec city, London Ontario possibly even Victoria and Halifax will have a better transit service then Wpg does by the end of the decade.

I would count out Victoria and Halifax. Victoria and Halifax are allergic to metro rail, and they think that they'll be the next Toronto/Vancouver if they allow any kind of urban infrastructure to develop within each city.

However, I think it would be a neck-to-neck race to see whether Saskatoon or Winnipeg gets to build their BRTs first at this rate .

[zalf]

Is Winnipeg actually slower than other cities at building infrastructure? If you live in a city, you see all the steps of a project like BRT from planning, to consultation, to revisions, to gradual implementation to opening.

For other cities you don't live in, you wouldn't necessarily see all of that. You'd just see out of the blue the CBC headline "City of Awatto Inaugurates New Transit Line" and not the preceding years of planning and false starts.

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by zalf

Is Winnipeg actually slower than other cities at building infrastructure? If you live in a city, you see all the steps of a project like BRT from planning, to consultation, to revisions, to gradual implementation to opening.

For other cities you don't live in, you wouldn't necessarily see all of that. You'd just see out of the blue the CBC headline "City of Awatto Inaugurates New Transit Line" and not the preceding years of planning and false starts.

Yep, there is a real perception around here that "Winnipeg sucks at everything", and while I concede that infrastructure-wise, we don't do a lot well, I wouldn't say we're necessarily far below average.

At the end of the day, Winnipeg is a city of 760,000 people. Not very many cities in North American specifically that size, and for those that are, we are on par when it comes to transit and infrastructure. It's easy for us to feel like we might be bigger than we are because we are the biggest city for 1000kms around, but the reality is that the current tax base simply doesn't want to pay for "big city" infrastructure and perhaps for good reason: it is simply to expensive given Winnipeg's current size.

Every city has an infrastructure deficit, every city has residents that complain about potholes, late buses, late trains, etc. That's just what happens when you live in a city. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely.

But Winnipeggers who look to Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, or Montreal for their transit infrastructure and say "I want that!" is like looking at your neighbor who drives a Porsche on their $200k/yr salary and wondering why you can't afford the same thing on your $75k/yr salary.

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

Yep, there is a real perception around here that "Winnipeg sucks at everything", and while I concede that infrastructure-wise, we don't do a lot well, I wouldn't say we're necessarily far below average.

At the end of the day, Winnipeg is a city of 760,000 people. Not very many cities in North American specifically that size, and for those that are, we are on par when it comes to transit and infrastructure. It's easy for us to feel like we might be bigger than we are because we are the biggest city for 1000kms around, but the reality is that the current tax base simply doesn't want to pay for "big city" infrastructure and perhaps for good reason: it is simply to expensive given Winnipeg's current size.

Every city has an infrastructure deficit, every city has residents that complain about potholes, late buses, late trains, etc. That's just what happens when you live in a city. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely.

But Winnipeggers who look to Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, or Montreal for their transit infrastructure and say "I want that!" is like looking at your neighbor who drives a Porsche on their $200k/yr salary and wondering why you can't afford the same thing on your $75k/yr salary.

Exactly! THANK you for these voices of sanity. I would add that, if one was to scan the comments from people in other cities, in forums like this or on-line news, you would eventually see a similar assortment of "this place sucks" comments. It's like every city is required to have it's allotment of people who rejoice in their negativity.

[GreyGarden]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

At the end of the day, Winnipeg is a city of 760,000 people. Not very many cities in North American specifically that size, and for those that are, we are on par when it comes to transit and infrastructure. It's easy for us to feel like we might be bigger than we are because we are the biggest city for 1000kms around, but the reality is that the current tax base simply doesn't want to pay for "big city" infrastructure and perhaps for good reason: it is simply to expensive given Winnipeg's current size.

I think this absolutely nails it. There are lots of things we don't do well and can do better, I'm not trying to make excuses for us, but you cannot discount the disadvantage we're at being a city of 760K and not being part of a larger metropolitan area. Hamilton and London and all those Southern Ontario cities do not have the infrastructure they have or are getting just because they have smarter or better planners than Winnipeg. Ontario has the tax base to fund these projects and has more sophisticated (at least compared to MB) institutions in place to put together partnerships between the province and municipalities.

We are much more on our own, and that affects our ability to build transit and attract investment. I'm always a little surprised when I see the amount of urban development taking place in smaller Ontario cities compared to Winnipeg right now, but the benefits of being in an incredibly populated and growing region can't be understated.

None of this will stop me from getting increasingly frustrated with Winnipeg and Manitoba, but its good to have some perspective.

[Labroco]

Is the line travel down Higgins or Sutherland?

If down Sutherland it will facilitate 100 houses. If down Higgins it would encourage 10 or 15 apartments buildings...

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by Labroco

Is the line travel down Higgins or Sutherland?

If down Sutherland it will facilitate 100 houses. If down Higgins it would encourage 10 or 15 apartments buildings...

The map on the page 37 of the TMP shows it going down Sutherland.

https://winnipegtransit.com/assets/2...an-reduced.pdf

[bomberjet]

The problem being is Winnipeg always seems to plan for things but never follows through. Then the City flip flops on priorities. Maybe other Cities have that problem too.

If the plans are to grandiose for the City to complete. That is a problem in the planning process. It took 50 whatever years to get the southwest route built. The new transit routing is a great first step. Requires minimal investment. They can get funding hopefully to complete the downtown portions of the plan, which is the first step to a broader network.

The route on Sutherland is nothing more than on street buses. That can easily be changed at some point in the future. Like I said, the City flip flop.

If we go back in time approx 20 years, prior to Disraeli reconstruction. There was a functional plan completed to build a dedicated transitway through south Point Douglas. It would end at Disraeli. It would've also extended off the east end of Point Douglas across to the Nairn area. Waterfront Drive extended through. I'll see if I can dig out the plans to share.

It would transform South Point Douglas completely.

Anywho. By the time the City will actually be ready to do anything substantial there, we can change the plan again then.

[bomberjet]

The 3 options that were looked at. Kind of hard to see some of the linework in grey and blue.

[esquire]

Just glanced at them, but I love option 1. Extending Waterfront through PD and pushing Higgins north so that the traffic runs closer to the CP tracks has the potential to really reshape that neighbourhood for the better.

[bomberjet]

That option would essentially blow away everything that is there now. I'm sure some people, including on this forum, would not like that haha

It would create an interesting opportunity to make new in there.

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

That option would essentially blow away everything that is there now. I'm sure some people, including on this forum, would not like that haha

It would create an interesting opportunity to make new in there.

If the buildings are really that worth preserving, then perhaps you can jack them up and move them to allow for this plan to go through. I know it's expensive, but this area could be something really special.