Winnipeg City Transit/Rapid Transit

[Greco Roman]

Originally Posted by Spocket

25 years ago Winnipeg was roughly 650,000 including the surrounding municipalities. It pretty much stalled completely in the '90's and then resumed around 2000. Growth has since been fairly healthy and the rate appears to be increasing , albeit not particularly dramatically. The capital region is approximately 750,000. The projection , according to the residential land supply study done for Waverley West is that the CMA will reach 812,000 in 2026 (not to be confused with the Capital Region which would probably be closer to 850,000) Chances are good that this projection is a bit on the modest side and the rate of growth is in fact higher. Assuming current trends hold, we're probably on track to hit 812,000 closer to 2020 in the CMA. The downturn in the national economy will likely cause many ex-pats to return which, in the short term will boost us above the average growth rate. Considering that many of these folks also happen to be in the skilled trades and Alberta is no longer drawing them in, we're likely to see many of them set down roots here as they have a chosen career and this is currently one of only two provinces still looking forward to a healthy economic year ahead.

When I said 500,000 to 550,000, I was only referring to the city proper and not the metro area.

[dennis]

In the 1986 census, metro Winnipeg was 625,304

[Spocket]

Originally Posted by Greco Roman

When I said 500,000 to 550,000, I was only referring to the city proper and not the metro area.

Yeah, sorry, it's just proving surprisingly difficult to find a figure for Winnipeg city proper. I'm pretty sure though that the city itself stood at roughly 600 k. The '86 census was taken right before we more or less bottomed out on population growth. '86 was actually a good year but after that it pretty much went downhill including a year of negative growth.

[Greco Roman]

Originally Posted by Spocket

Yeah, sorry, it's just proving surprisingly difficult to find a figure for Winnipeg city proper. I'm pretty sure though that the city itself stood at roughly 600 k. The '86 census was taken right before we more or less bottomed out on population growth. '86 was actually a good year but after that it pretty much went downhill including a year of negative growth.

86 eh? I was thinking more around 78-80

[thurmas]

winnipeg's biggest 2 population slumps were 1976-1981 when all of manitoba only gained 5000 people our weakest growth period of all time (this was due to the oil boom in alberta) we recovered in the mid 1980's because of the national energy program in alberta where expats came home 1982-1988.Then when the recesion hit we faced the decade of darkness 1989-1999 of almost no growth at all and winnipeg barely changed at all. Our population didnot start to really grow until about 5 years ago with our new immigration program of getting immigrants abroad who were matched to specific jobs in manitoba. Who knows how big winnipeg would be if those 2 slumps where either lessened or avoided we would probably be 50000-100000 larger in population.

[Greco Roman]

Here is a response to the plans for Saskatoon's LRT I pulled from the Saskatoon thread:

"Things are looking promising with Riverlanding, hopefully this will motivate and inspire other developers to do similar developments throughout the city! As far as I know and from what I understand the city is currently securing existing rails to ensure efficient routes as well this will help cut costs. I'm not quite sure but I think the city is pushing for more dense developments and more core redevelopment to increase the population density so a train can be built with a smaller population."

Saskatoon seems to have it right.

[vid]

They also have a pretty good plan for bike trails in the city, and one of their councillors is trying to make Saskatoon a world leader in transportation by bicycle. They obviously know what they're doing. More cities in Canada can learn from their experiences.

[The Jabroni]

Saskatoon is doing it right indeed. Why can't Winnipeg be like them?

Oh yeah that's right, everything here has backwards thinking from the bureaucrats who run this city.

[viperred88]

Originally Posted by vid

They also have a pretty good plan for bike trails in the city, and one of their councillors is trying to make Saskatoon a world leader in transportation by bicycle. They obviously know what they're doing. More cities in Canada can learn from their experiences.

if you have articles about this could you post in the Winnipeg bicycle thread.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=155396


Maybe Winnipeg could use some ideas from 'toon town.

[vid]

I don't have time to do it now, but it was on the National the week before last. You could try checking Saskatoon's city website for any plans of bike paths, or for it's official city plan. (Which might be gigantic, ours is over 200 pages and we're half the size.)

[madsad]

Originally Posted by vid

I don't have time to do it now, but it was on the National the week before last. You could try checking Saskatoon's city website for any plans of bike paths, or for it's official city plan. (Which might be gigantic, ours is over 200 pages and we're half the size.)

Yes, the Saskatoon Bike Plan documents are comprehensive, well-written, and are great reads, and present future plans that make bikey people salivate. However, the capital dollars just are not being allocated to this project. There are a few token bike lanes around the university and the tourist district of Spadina Crescent, but the rest of the city remains neglected as of yet. Recently, I've noticed green bike route signs appearing around town, but they are too small, and are haphazardly arranged here and there, without making much sense. There isn't even a bike map, showing dedicated and recommended routes...so I'm not sure how the signs are going to help without an overall system map. The older asphalt multi-use trails meander, are not too useful for commuting, and are (imo) not wide enough.

[vid]

Yeah, the guy who was in charge of the bike paths in Saskatoon was complaining about how he only got about 200,000$, if that, to do everything he wanted to do and that he was trying to get more to accomplish their goal.

[Only The Lonely..]

Originally Posted by Only The Lonely..

Wow, you know what? I never thought in a million years i'd ever agree with anything said by Jack Layton. But his ideas regarding urban transit are probably the most insightful thing said yet from a politician in Ottawa.

Layton promises transit cash

By: Joe Paraskevas | Winnipeg Free Press

Updated: August 13 at 11:28 AM CDT

Federal New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton stood on a corner of the Graham Avenue transit mall this morning and set out a plan that would deliver $108 million for Winnipeg public transit.

"Many Canadians understand now we have to take strong action to deal with climate change," Layton said at a news conference as buses rumbled by, a few metres away.


"In fact, in many ways Canadians are ahead of governments often times on these issues," he continued. "But they're looking for the solutions to be available to them so they can leave their car at home once in a while. But you can't do that if you haven't got transit that's affordable and available to you."


The NDP plan would channel federal dollars annually to municipalities with the only restriction that the money go towards public transit.


The money would come from a committment of one per cent per litre of the existing federal excise tax on gasoline, as well as a share of a cap-and-trade system of charging large polluters for the greenhouse gases they emit.


But Layton also had to respond to questions about the chances his plan had in becoming reality.


As the fourth largest party in the House of Commons, the NDP has limited influence.


Layton assured reporters he would try to sway the Conservative government, an administration he termed had "no interest in these matters."


"We remain eternally optimistic," Layton said, "and if (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper is unwilling, then we'll take it to the voters when that time comes. I believe it will have a lot of community support."


Among local politicians, the response to Layton's announcement seemed positive.


Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry Coun. Jenny Gerbasi, one of the strongest advocates at city hall for rapid transit welcomed the plan as "dedicated, predictible transit funding."


She said such ongoing federal investment is "what we've been missing."


Winnipeg is awaiting an announcement from city and provincial governments on rapid transit using a one-time allocation of about $18 million from Ottawa.


Moreover, Gerbasi and Layton said Mayor Sam Katz called the NDP's plan "awesome" when he spoke to the NDP leader yesterday.

[sledhead35]

Originally Posted by Only The Lonely..

Layton promises transit cash
She said such ongoing federal investment is "what we've been missing."

funny, i thought the city pissed away the money we did get from the feds for transit.

[1ajs]

^^^ yea...

[Spocket]

For once I think Layton is as good as his word. Being as he's a dyed-in-the-wool socialist I have no doubt he'll push for mass transit funding. He's also right about the Conservatives having no interest in the matter since their funding allocations towards national infrastructure have been piecemeal and appear to be more politically motivated than part of some plan to actually , you know, do something about the sad state of things.

[LilZebra]

I thought you felt rt unnecessary in Winnipeg, so why would you care?

[Spocket]

^Huh ? I've never said that. Secondly, if you're going to troll around and try to pick a fight , at least get your facts straight.

[LilZebra]

Well, BRT isn't rapid transit anyways, so in effect you don't want rapid transit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_transit

[Spocket]

^So you goofed up and now you're too petty to even acknowledge it ? Good grief kid, it's called Bus Rapid Transit. That's what BRT stands for. I'm not going to argue with you over semantics. Either make a comment regarding the topic or save your trolling for some other thread.
Besides, if you'd bother to actually read what I said a couple of posts back you'd realize that I never said anything about rapid transit anyway. I said MASS transit. As long as you want to quibble over frivolous details then I say that turnabout is fair play. Learn to read.
Oh, and while we're at it, where did I say that I didn't want any other form of rapid transit than BRT ? Geez...you sure do prove that old adage that it's better to say nothing and appear the fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I said we couldn't afford LRT and even if we could we don't actually need it anyway. I never said I'd be unhappy to see it in Winnipeg but that's not because it's the wisest choice we could make. Going for LRT in Winnipeg is no different than a first year college student using his tuition money to buy a Hummer.