https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2023/05/29/its-time-to-make-better-transportation-decisionsARCHITECT Brent Bellamy comments in the May 23 edition ( Need more congestion? Route 90 plan is the $500-M ticket) that improving Kenaston Boulevard will be, in total, more than just the $500 million construction cost, that the bill won’t be paid for up to 30 years, that greater capacity will create further congestion as this becomes a preferred route, and that we should consider the impact on future generations.
In all of these points, Mr. Bellamy is correct, although I think he should have mentioned that for something like this, there is cost sharing with the province/feds which typically reduces the cost to the city.
The reality is we could have avoided a lot of this pain had we made better decisions 50 years ago.
Around 1970, Plan Winnipeg decided that, with minor exceptions, we would be a city without freeways. Today, for a city of our size, we have significant traffic congestion and an inefficient transportation system.
Rather than expediting travel from one part of the city to another, it seems like it is more designed to spread the pain, as most routes take about the same time. On that point, traffic is bad enough on major routes at rush hour that we now have restrictions on travel through residential areas because commuters would rather take the “scenic route” than fight traffic on a “major route” studded with light signals (which, by the way, the Kenaston expansion won’t deal with — it still incorporates stop lights). If there is more traffic on a widened Kenaston, there will be less through River Heights.
The simple fact is that if we had not made the decision to avoid freeways in 1970, the cost of implementing them would have been significantly less than the cost today.
Consider the issue of the Red River Floodway, the initial cost of which was significantly less than $100 million in the mid-1960s. To give you an idea of the cost of deferring capital expenditures, Fargo, N.D., is currently implementing a “floodway- style” Red River diversion. Although it has some more complex details than our own floodway, the cost: US$3.2 Billion.
Bellamy, among others, has touted the benefits of active and mass transportation. At the urging of special interest groups such as Bike Winnipeg, politicians have dedicated millions of tax dollars to creating an “active transportation” network — including bike paths — and are considering expansion of the mass-transit system. The reality is these solutions are not realistic for our climate and the busy North American lifestyle of most families.
On the matter of bike paths for commuting, I have never heard a convincing argument for this. Someone needs to stand up and say this will never work for the vast majority of people. As it is, the existing system of bike paths are largely unused, let alone considering expanding the system further. While this is a feel-good story, it doesn’t make sense for us for a variety of reasons.
Essentially, commuting by bike will work only for those who can shower when they get to work, for people who don’t need a vehicle to make calls out of the office on a given day, who can keep separate attire at work and don’t have a busy family life.
If you need to use your vehicle for work, live in the suburbs or don’t have facilities to shower/
change, this will never work. Furthermore, given our climate, this is barely workable for four to five months of the year.
Finally, can someone please explain to me how someone with a bike picks up their kids from daycare and gets them to sports/activities and then home again on a bike?
Some will say improved mass transit is an answer. The existing system loses a fortune every year, and the ongoing cost of providing frequent and efficient mass transit to overcome climate and distance is unimaginable. As a first step, we need to make the existing system safe.
Until we confront that issue, ridership will be limited to those who have no choice or for whom the cost of commuting with a vehicle is prohibitive. Also, building a mass-transit system forces the assumption of where planners think people will want to go in 10, 20 or 30 years. That’s a tough call. It’s a good thing we didn’t build mass transit out to Polo Park to serve the Jets and Bombers.
Perhaps an alternative is to accept the fact that personal vehicles are and likely will be the preferred form of transportation for the foreseeable future. In the same manner, single-family homes are likely to remain the preferred form of residence.
To try and reconcile these issues, could we perhaps embrace the move to electric vehicles instead and accept the need for an improved traffic system?
In Norway, a country with a winter climate and a small population spread over a wide area, the majority of vehicles sold are now electric. Manitoba has the current and potential power resources to be self-sufficient in energy as well as an even more significant exporter. Further development of this resource would allow Manitobans to maintain our lifestyle and help address climate change through export of clean electricity.
An expansive charging network would remove one of the main concerns of potential vehicle owners and do so at a fraction of the cost of mass-transit expansion.
Either way, an efficient transportation system based in reality is needed. It’s unfortunate that we are where we are, though this is the cost of poor decision making in the past.
It’s even more unfortunate the city’s finances are so messed up that we absolutely can’t afford to take this project on, regardless of any benefit. The city is broke, broke, broke.
But that’s another story.
Ray Kohanik writes from Winnipeg.