We need to commission a study.
The Eighth Street Bridge in Brandon is on the public’s minds this week as it is once again partially closed in its march toward the end of its usable life as a traffic bridge. The city closed it down to one lane until structural tests can be done to see where the bridge currently stands.
I have been a vocal opponent, at least online and in this blog, of the rebuilding of the structure. At $20,000,000 to $34,000,000 we just cannot afford to replace this bridge. I’m also not convinced that the Daly Overpass is actually the problem with 18th Street. The problem is too many cars that should be elsewhere. The question is, what should we do about it? I’ve discussed both these topics before.
Is the Daly Overpass the Problem?
Now, I don’t know what all the solutions are, but i have some ideas. I don’t seem to be the only one either. Local resident and Winnipeg Free Press columnist Deveryn Ross also has written about problems in the area. In particular the Canadian Pacific (CP) railroad main line that goes right through this area. In fact, the CP yards sit right there, hence the need for the 8th street bridge to traverse them.
Time to pull up tracks in Brandon?
(Deveryn Ross for the Free Press)
In his article, Mr. Ross talks about moving the rail lines, especially since there are currently three bridges traversing them that need to be upgraded or replaced, or in the case of 8th street, converted for other use. Moving the line might be cheaper than building the bridges. Who knows?
This is why we need a study.
Of course, this should have been done back in 2011 when we commissioned a consultant to look at the options for the 8th street bridge. Of course, the consultation was useless since it didn’t even consider not replacing the bridge. A total waste of money.
A proper study at the time would have looked at the reasons for a bridge, the need for a bridge, and what other options may be available to rectify the problems in the area. It would have considered rail lines and bridges as an entire system. It would have looked at rail line or at least rail yard relocation. Not doing this has already cost us a ton of money, and it is about to cost us at least $40,000,000 more. Forty million is the price tag quoted by premier Selinger to replace the 1st street bridge starting this fall, a number that given past experience with the Thompson bridge, will most likely balloon out of control. 
There was also a new bridge built on the CP main line for Provincial Highway 110, the Eastern By-pass, to pass under the tracks. Chances are CP would not be too keen to abandon a brand new bridge. As for 1st street, in the four years since 2011 it has been found to be in such a state that we must replace it immediately, no time for alternative plans.
However, there is perhaps a solution somewhere in there. Maybe the main line stays where it is but we move the yards outside of the city, either east or west. If you reduce the line to just one or two tracks inside the city, then 8th street can become a level crossing. Put another level crossing around 22nd street and perhaps you reduce traffic on 18th to the point where the Daly Overpass can handle the traffic in its current configuration. Perhaps the solution is in one of my other posts. Perhaps the solution isn’t any of those but something that the engineers haven’t looked at yet, because nobody has asked. Some people claim that some of these solutions will cost too much, but the reality is that they don’t know, because we haven’t examined the problem adequately.
We need these answers. We need someone to look into them. We need this done before we spend $60,000,000 or more, lots more, on the Daly Overpass. This doesn’t even consider the costs of replacing all this infrastructure again in 50 years, and 50 years after that. How many times are we going to keep making the same short-sighted decisions?
If the past has taught us anything, it is that not looking at options early enough can become costly in the future. We backed ourselves into a corner with 1st street. I hope we don’t repeat the same mistake.
So what does that have to do with Brandon? Lots actually. The Kmart brand has been gone from Canada for almost 20 years now, but Canadians are familiar with it and have memories of shopping there. It is a known brand that can be refreshed. It’s colours are also closer in line with Target, in particular red. Opening up a Kmart store in Brandon would allow Sears to redefine the Kmart brand in Canada as a leaner version of Sears as opposed to what it was when it left, reduce significantly the amount of renovations needed to open the store considering the current renovations are only two years old, and give the company a way to be in smaller communities such as Brandon that are big enough for more than a catalogue store, but perhaps not the full line. I suspect that there are five or six cities in Canada at least that the concept could fit into, and it gets the company into some markets that would support it very well. I think that properly executed, they could be some of Sears Canada’s best performing stores. 
As for London Drugs, my feeling is that they are a nice sized store that would work well in Brandon. It puts a pharmacy back in the mall, along with one of Canada’s major electronics and photo retailers. Every time I’m in St. Vital mall, I am impressed with how diverse London Drugs is in a relatively small footprint that would easily fit where the old Safeway was. Not to mention that they are a solid Canadian based retailer that understands the Canadian market and whose distribution network passes right through our city. In short, I’m surprised that they are not here already.