Winnipeg Roads & Infrastructure

[Wpgstvsouth94]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Never. They do list out the streets up for renewal in the City budget though.

I shared a link somewhere in here. Could dig that up again.

Pothole season is upon us lol I noticed the asphalt overlay they did on Main St downtown in the last year or two is peeling off. Not good news my friends.

They did a tbo on the southbound and northbound lanes of St. Anne’s Road from nova Vista to meadowood. They just finished northbound in October and there’s massive potholes just after nova Vista past the Petro Canada. Unbelievable.. I notice when they do these tbos on roads they last only a couple months I’m assuming this is a cheaper mix they use it’s very obvious.

[The Jabroni]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

A bumper year for potholes based on weather.

Bumpers would be the least of the drivers worries.

Earlier this week, there have been a handful of cars that pulled over to the shoulder on eastbound Bishop Grandin between River and St. Mary's, because of some massive potholes on the right lane, and they either got flat tires or broken suspension. They have since patched the holes.

There are so many more roads out there with larger potholes. The stretch on the southbound lanes from St. Vital Rd to Bishop where there is a massive pothole close to the Popeye's. Nearly fell into it myself this morning.

[Wpgstvsouth94]

Originally Posted by The Jabroni

Bumpers would be the least of the drivers worries.

Earlier this week, there have been a handful of cars that pulled over to the shoulder on eastbound Bishop Grandin between River and St. Mary's, because of some massive potholes on the right lane, and they either got flat tires or broken suspension. They have since patched the holes.

There are so many more roads out there with larger potholes. The stretch on the southbound lanes from St. Vital Rd to Bishop where there is a massive pothole close to the Popeye's. Nearly fell into it myself this morning.

I saw that last night. Dollarama donated a bunch of pylons to alert drivers lol. This city is a joke with road construction.

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by Wpgstvsouth94

I saw that last night. Dollarama donated a bunch of pylons to alert drivers lol. This city is a joke with road construction.

I think a big part of the problem is that as time goes on and more maintenance is deferred, you get more imperfections in the road surface. In the winter, when snow clearing equipment goes by, it catches the imperfections and rips big chunks out of the roadway. The holes are filled with ice and snow, so nobody notices until the spring melt. It seems that every spring, people are caught by surprise with some of these things, which can sometimes be 6-8" deep and a foot or two across. A lot of people may see the hole late and brake, further compounding the problem as they shift a lot of weight onto the front end of the car, causing major damage if the pothole is hit the wrong way.

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

I think a big part of the problem is that as time goes on and more maintenance is deferred, you get more imperfections in the road surface.

I don't think the main issue is how much we spend now, it's how much we spent in the past (or lack of spending) that has lead to a massive maintenance backlog. For a city our size, the road maintenance budget is MASSIVE believe it or not.

In 2023, Winnipeg budgeted $180 million for new streets and street renewal or $230 per person. In the same year, Calgary (the golden poster child for a revenue-rich municipal budget) budgeted $187 million for new streets and street renewal, or $132 per person. That means we spend 74% more per capita on streets here in Winnipeg compared to Calgary. This is probably the ONLY municipal budget item where we outperform other major Canadian cities on spending, and its a true reflection of the voter bases' civic priorities.

Every social media platform that has Winnipeggers on it do nothing but complain about the state of our streets, especially in spring time when the potholes emerge. But I don't think we truly understand how much we spend on just fixing what roads we have compared to other cities. Part of this has to do with playing catchup from the 1990s to end of the Katz era in 2014 when road spending was virtually flat to accommodate property tax freezes/decreases during that time. I think the roads budget during that era maxed out around ~$30 million IIRC? So now after the addition of several major suburbs in the 1990s and 2000s and their associated street renewal costs coming due, we've pumped up our roads budget to the detriment of almost every other municipal service.

Winnipeggers need to face reality that we will always have potholes on our streets. We will never have all our roads near-perfect condition given our climate, geology, and fiscal constraints. I have suspicions that fixing our roads is no longer an issue of money but local labour and equipment supply. If we continue to crank up road expenditures like we have in the last 10 years, we will soon hit local capacity to repair roads and just end up paying more per unit of fixed road instead of seeing more work done.

I say its time to level off the amount of potholes we try to fix each year and shift some of our civic priorities to other, more impactful areas of our city.

[Wpgstvsouth94]

https://www.merx.com/mbgov/solicitat...63402&origin=2

So it looks like they’re doing eastbound Bishop grand in this year. Interesting concept of rehabilitation I had to Google what rubbelizaion is! Looks like we’re finally getting rid of those curbs and replacing them with actual shoulders if you need to pull over. It doesn’t say anything about extending the distance of the merge lanes, though which I find very concerning.

[bomberjet]

If anyone has access to the drawings, would be interested to see what they're doing. They may still have barrier curbs on the left side (like the north perimeter). It doesn't really say clearly in that scope of work.

Ideally ya it's just a normal highway cross section with no curbs. Median might not be wide enough for that though. They do mention w-beam guardrail as well.

[anthonyk]

Plans show removing median curb and installing paved shoulder

[anthonyk]

Also, tender is out for extension of AT path on west side of Keewatin from Burrows to Gallagher. Nothing major, but definitely an improvement for the area, I cycled there a few years ago and was surprised by the path ending so abruptly at Burrows.

[WPG84]

Originally Posted by anthonyk

Also, tender is out for extension of AT path on west side of Keewatin from Burrows to Gallagher. Nothing major, but definitely an improvement for the area, I cycled there a few years ago and was surprised by the path ending so abruptly at Burrows.

First time poster and long timer lurker an active cyclist, but not hardcore..I think this should have been done a long time ago.. If this finally happens this is maybe one AT path that finally allows cyclist who live north of Logan access to the rest of the city. somewhat need a couple more of these in that part of the city.

[bon_vivant]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

I don't think the main issue is how much we spend now, it's how much we spent in the past (or lack of spending) that has lead to a massive maintenance backlog. For a city our size, the road maintenance budget is MASSIVE believe it or not.

In 2023, Winnipeg budgeted $180 million for new streets and street renewal or $230 per person. In the same year, Calgary (the golden poster child for a revenue-rich municipal budget) budgeted $187 million for new streets and street renewal, or $132 per person. That means we spend 74% more per capita on streets here in Winnipeg compared to Calgary. This is probably the ONLY municipal budget item where we outperform other major Canadian cities on spending, and its a true reflection of the voter bases' civic priorities.

Every social media platform that has Winnipeggers on it do nothing but complain about the state of our streets, especially in spring time when the potholes emerge. But I don't think we truly understand how much we spend on just fixing what roads we have compared to other cities. Part of this has to do with playing catchup from the 1990s to end of the Katz era in 2014 when road spending was virtually flat to accommodate property tax freezes/decreases during that time. I think the roads budget during that era maxed out around ~$30 million IIRC? So now after the addition of several major suburbs in the 1990s and 2000s and their associated street renewal costs coming due, we've pumped up our roads budget to the detriment of almost every other municipal service.

Winnipeggers need to face reality that we will always have potholes on our streets. We will never have all our roads near-perfect condition given our climate, geology, and fiscal constraints. I have suspicions that fixing our roads is no longer an issue of money but local labour and equipment supply. If we continue to crank up road expenditures like we have in the last 10 years, we will soon hit local capacity to repair roads and just end up paying more per unit of fixed road instead of seeing more work done.

I say its time to level off the amount of potholes we try to fix each year and shift some of our civic priorities to other, more impactful areas of our city.

Thank you for this comment. It's the most insightful explanation of the state of our roads I've heard so far. I recently moved back to Winnipeg after living in BC for almost 20 years and was horrified by how much worse our roads have become. While I can tolerate our less-than-perfect road surfaces, the craters and missing chunks of road are disgraceful and simply dangerous. These shabby conditions are terrible for civic pride and make a lot of motorists angry and aggressive, which is also dangerous. The labour and equipment shortage you mention would likely explain the glacial pace at which some road repairs proceed. In terms of shifting civic priorities to more impactful areas, I'd say it should be towards improving public transit (but that's a whole other discussion).

[rivercity]

Apples to oranges comparison in my mind. Alberta is flush with money and provides a lot of grants for infrastructure. Highway 2 through Calgary received 615 Million dollars in funding for improvements through the City in 2023 for 3-4 years worth of improvements for twinning of bridges, intersection improvements and improving access ramps, etc.. That along is like 20% of MTIs 5 year budget i think which includes ALL our infrastructure rom dams, drains, northern airports, ferrys, highways, bridges. Can you imagine what a difference it would be if say MTI upgraded and maintained Lagimodiere through the City to freeway standards?

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by rivercity

Apples to oranges comparison in my mind. Alberta is flush with money and provides a lot of grants for infrastructure. Highway 2 through Calgary received 615 Million dollars in funding for improvements through the City in 2023 for 3-4 years worth of improvements for twinning of bridges, intersection improvements and improving access ramps, etc.. That along is like 20% of MTIs 5 year budget i think which includes ALL our infrastructure rom dams, drains, northern airports, ferrys, highways, bridges. Can you imagine what a difference it would be if say MTI upgraded and maintained Lagimodiere through the City to freeway standards?

Province should have Lagimodiere at least. There should also be one east-west provincial highway through the city.

[WildCake]

Originally Posted by rivercity

Apples to oranges comparison in my mind. Alberta is flush with money and provides a lot of grants for infrastructure. Highway 2 through Calgary received 615 Million dollars in funding for improvements through the City in 2023 for 3-4 years worth of improvements for twinning of bridges, intersection improvements and improving access ramps, etc.. That along is like 20% of MTIs 5 year budget i think which includes ALL our infrastructure rom dams, drains, northern airports, ferrys, highways, bridges. Can you imagine what a difference it would be if say MTI upgraded and maintained Lagimodiere through the City to freeway standards?

The discussion was revolving around basic maintenance, not widening or improvement projects, which depending on the scale, will also be funded with some provincial dollars here in Manitoba. So I think the comparison in per capita spending between Calgary and Winnipeg in road infrastructure dollars that Winnipegger brought up is fair. Especially so given that Winnipeg has not had a significant widening, interchange, or new major roadway in the last few years, so all the road infra money here is dumpedin maintenance or studies.

[rml]

too many potholes in the Peg. But i do love the white out for the hockey games!

[bomberjet]

Every spring. "OMG potholes! the worst it's ever been!" Every. Year. haha Like it's some kind of surprise.

It's not "too many potholes", is the spending deficit from the last few decades we are trying to dig out of. Thank Bowman for that. Will take another decade or so to dig out.

[rivercity]

Originally Posted by WildCake

The discussion was revolving around basic maintenance, not widening or improvement projects, which depending on the scale, will also be funded with some provincial dollars here in Manitoba. So I think the comparison in per capita spending between Calgary and Winnipeg in road infrastructure dollars that Winnipegger brought up is fair. Especially so given that Winnipeg has not had a significant widening, interchange, or new major roadway in the last few years, so all the road infra money here is dumpedin maintenance or studies.

Fair enough!

[Carboy15]

In my opinion, potholes are an inevitable problem. Winnipeg is at least trying its best to fix it, but unfortunately to have the problem fixed forever we would need to repave almost every street.

[The Jabroni]

It's a perpetual issue for sure, so we just do what we can to deal with it.

[The Jabroni]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

Province should have Lagimodiere at least. There should also be one east-west provincial highway through the city.

I think the closest east-west highway would be to have CentrePort extend out to PTH 26 to the west, have CentrePort connect to the planned western extension of Chief Peguis, and then have CPT from Lag connect to the planned Ed Schreyer Parkway and go further east towards...

*checks notes*

...onto the existing path of Gunn Rd, onto the Perimeter, and then eventually go further towards Oakbank...?