Living, Working, and Wasting Time in Southern Manitoba

Category: Municipal

Opportunity Missed in 2011

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.

A bridge unneeded…

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. New CP Rail Bridge at PTH-110 (Google Earth)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.

Questionable Problem, Wrong Solution

Reduced speed limits in school zones came into effect this past September across Manitoba. The provincial government had earlier passed a law enabling local governments to reduce speed limits next to schools if deemed necessary. Of course, not wanting to look like they didn’t care about the children, many local councils including the one in Brandon p26th Street Southbound at JR Reidassed such a bylaw.

The signs went up in August.

So, of course,  the debate started on eBrandon.ca and twitter the first week of school. Predictably there are a number of people who think that the whole thing is just a money grab with increased speeding tickets, with others arguing that we should do anything we can to keep the children safe. To be frank, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, but I question if it was really a safety issue.

So, let’s actually do something that makes children safer. I’m not convinced that this is it. I think a better idea is higher fines in school zones for speeding, as does former Brandon city councillor Stephen Montague, as pointed out in this June 6, 2014 editorial in the Brandon Sun.

“While signage is a minor concern, we think Coun. Stephen Montague (Richmond) wasn’t wrong when he suggested there could have been other options to lowering the speed limit, like keeping the limit the same but increasing fines for speeding in school areas.

He also said better enforcement of no-parking and no-stopping zones near schools where stopped vehicles narrow the path for passing cars and limit lines of sight could also provide a benefit.”

This becomes really apparent on 26th Street in front of J.R. Reid School. As you approach the school from the south you cross Park Avenue which is a lighted intersection, and immediately enter the school speed zone. It seems possible to me that at some point as drivers slow down through the intersection that someone is going to get rear-ended by someone else more worried about the lights and less about the zone. I could very well see the accident numbers going up at this intersection as a result of this speed change.

I’m also not convinced that the speed limit had to be reduced. Again, at J.R. Reid it never appeared that people going the previously posted speed limit of 50km/h were ever a problem. I’m sure that there were problems with speed, but I’m guessing that the problem was most likely people going 60km/h or more in that zone. Yes, technically the drop to 30km/h makes the spot even safer, but I sense that it is already pretty safe. Again, the Brandon Sun looked into this city wide, and from that same editorial:

“But there don’t seem to be any major injuries or deaths in Brandon school zones in nearly a quarter-century.

As we reported yesterday following a search of the Brandon Sun archives, two children were killed by vehicles in recent years, but neither incident was outside a school.

The closest fatality to a school that could be found was in March 1991, when a five-year-old boy was hit on Knowlton Drive — on a Sunday —after walking into traffic from between parked cars, in front of the Sportsplex near Kirkcaldy Heights School.”

It seems to me that we are dropping the speed limit to prevent accidents that are not happening, and I would expect that we will see an increase in rear-end collisions as a result. It would not surprise me in the slightest if this costs Manitoba Public Insurance more money in the long run. Those of us who obey the posted speed limit were never the problem, in fact it seems that there wasn’t actually much of a problem. If in there was a problem, then Victoria Avenue and 18th Street would have a 30km/h speed limit next to Earl Oxford School as one would suspect that to be the most dangerous school zone in the city, yet we do not reduce the speed limit in that area. That tells me that the other zones are not about safety but about the appearance of safety. “Safety theatre” I would call it.

We already have double fines for speeding in a construction zone, we could do the same or higher in a school zone. Signage in a school zone could read, “School Zone: Speed Fines X 4”. That would hit the problem drivers where it hurts, the pocketbook, and leave us other drivers to drive at a reasonable limit. It would also mean that Earl Oxford would have a safer zone as more people would observe the 50km/h speed limit.

The provincial government needs to revisit this law and provide for these higher fines in school zones. Local governments could then have the choice of reducing the speed (if it makes sense), or of multiplying the fines. Choose one or the other, but not both, depending on the school. Schools on residential streets actually make sense at 30km/h, like Meadows or Green Acres for example. However, schools like J.R. Reid, Earl Oxford, and King George, which are next to major routes, do not make sense to have a reduced speed limit; we should find a better solution.

Perhaps we start local

Election season is now in full swing. This past week saw the deadline for nominations for candidates in the upcoming civic election in the city of Brandon. We now have four candidates for mayor and various candidates for councillor throughout the city.

The Brandon Sun has started its full election coverage with a weekly feature questioning each mayoral candidate on various topics facing the city. This week the topic was infrastructure, which to readers familiar with this blog, is an issue I’m very interested in, especially transportation infrastructure within the city.

Mark KovatchAs a result of reading that article, I consider that Brandon has three serious candidates for mayor. Mark Kovatch, owner of Turtle Crossing Campground, answered the questions the clearest of the four. Frontrunners Mayor Sherri Decter Hirst and former councillor Rick Chrest had okay answers but you could tell that they are practiced politicians. John Paul Jacobson just didn’t connect with me. My feelings on that feature is that Mr. Kovatch was the clear winner in my mind, and I will now take a harder look at him as voting day approaches.

This again brings me back to a problem I had with the federal by-election last year, and our broken first past the post voting system. If I decide that I would like to eventually vote for Mr. Kovatch, I would like my vote to actually count. I would like other people who would like to vote for perceived third or fourth candidates to also feel that their vote counts for something. I would like to not have to consider voting strategically if there is a candidate that I could absolutely not want to be in office. This is why, as I’ve stated before, we need a preferential ballot system. My belief is that we need it at all levels, but I think the local level would be a good start.

For those unfamiliar with a preferential ballot, it works like this. Instead of marking an X next to the candidate of your choice, you instead number rank them. In the case of the mayoral election, you would number them one to four, 1 for your top pick and 4 for your lowest pick. In an election such as this one, where two candidates are considered favourites, if your first pick is not a frontrunner, and it comes down to the frontrunners, you still get a choice between them. I have in the past voted for someone who is not my first choice because they are the best chance to defeat a candidate that I very much dislike, but has a chance of winning. In the by-election, more people in Brandon-Souris voted for left leaning candidates but the right wing candidate got in. Had we had a preferential ballot, most likely our MP in Ottawa would currently be a Liberal.

As it appears by a quick reading of the Elections Act of Manitoba, we would need the province to amend the act to allow preferential ballots in Manitoba civic elections, something recently done in Ontario. Interestingly enough, it seems that preferential ballots were the norm in Manitoba for much of the early part of the twentieth century up until 1954/55 when they were changed for partisan reasons.

My thoughts are that if we had such a system, candidates like Mr. Kovatch, who might actually have people interested in voting for them, might make a much better showing. You may get a situation where such a candidate is actually the first choice of more people than a perceived frontrunner. It evens the playing field, if only just a bit.

My question for mayoral candidates and others running for Brandon Council is this,

 “Do you favour the adoption of a preferential ballot in Brandon before the end of the next term?”

We might find we get a better race.

Mr. Selinger, we need some upgrades…

As I write, Brandon is experiencing another “high water event” on the Assiniboine River. Torrential downpours last weekend in Saskatchewan and Manitoba has led to an overabundance of moisture in the watershed that feeds the Souris and Assiniboine Rivers, both of which feed through Western Manitoba, the Assiniboine cutting through the north end of Brandon.

As of this morning, the Assiniboine river is over Grand Valley Road west of the Corral Centre, and has resulted in the closing of First Street North as it curves around the river in the east. Eighteenth Street is down to one lane in each direction until this evening. For the second time in just over three years, we are a city cut in two.

This morning, Deveryn Ross, Winnipeg Free Press columnist and Brandon resident tweeted the following link to his new column.

In the article he points out that the province has made repeated promises for upgraded flood protection since 2011 and had promised us 1-in-700 year flood protection at one point which has been downgraded back down to 1-in-300 in limited areas.

Now, I understand why the city is letting 1st Street flood, there is simply not enough time or labour available to protect the street, they only had a day to do a job that in 2011 took weeks to prepare. It was simply an impossibility. For this event it is the right call; it is the only call.

However, when this event is over, we need to really pressure the province to bring this city up to a 1-in-700 year flood protection level. My expectation would be that that would mean we need to find a way to keep 1st Street at least partially open. It seems to me that the southbound lanes of 1st are probably not able to be upgraded as they are essentially on the riverbank. However, we have the northbound lanes which are far enough away to do something. I would like to see the engineering possibilities to raise the northbound lanes higher, up to the 700 year height level, but not as a dike, instead more of a causeway in places. That way the water could still flow past and under the street while keeping an extra artery to the north end of the city open, although at reduced capacity. First Street is a provincial trunk highway (1A) so the province should perhaps concentrate on getting something done to keep it open. Two lanes is better than none. They did after all promise that our city would receive 1-in-700 year flood protection after raising our PST rate by one percent. Perhaps they need to stick to that. In the meantime our city works to get us through this latest event. Thanks to all the officials and workers that are working around the clock to keep us safe.

Winnipeg gets the floodway, we should at least get an upgraded road.

Let the market decide…

I’m not a fan of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. It is not fair to the immigrants that it purports to help, and it is not fair to Canadian citizens who are looking for work at a fair wage and cannot find it.

There are a few things that bother me about this program, and most of them involve the sheer hypocrisy of the proponents. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are responsible for this mess, both have had their hands in the program over the years. However, the NDP I suspect would not be much better on this file. Both sides have their reasons to support the program, although purely political. When it comes down to it, from a purely philosophical position, it goes against all parties’ values.

The Conservative position has always been the position that the free-market should be allowed to exist and prosper with little government interference. The mantra of small-c conservatives has always been “let the market decide”. It is widely considered the number one rule of conservatism. The government should stay out of the way of business. Go to the food or retail sectors and suggest that something needs to be regulated or inspected more and people will say that the industry should be able to self-regulate. If consumers do not like it, they will find another company for the goods and services they want, and the demand for that company’s products will go away. Again and again the laws of supply and demand are used to keep government interference as low as possible. The Conservatives are the owner’s of this mantra, but the Liberals, being a center-right party, often buy into the same argument.

It’s not a bad argument. Let the market decide is usually a good way to go. The government should try to keep its interference as low as possible. As long as companies are acting ethically, treating their employees with respect, paying a living or competitive wage, and producing safe and effective products, governments should just stay out of the picture. I understand that and agree with it.

This is where the TFWP makes no sense to me. If a company cannot find workers for its business at the wage it is offering, then a company should raise its wages until it can find workers that are willing to work for it. That is how supply and demand works. You have a high demand for workers and a low supply, then you have to pay more for workers. If you run a meat packing plant, you cannot expect people to work for you at the same pay rate as people who are working at the local fast food place. Your work is harder work and you therefore have to pay more. That is how the free market works, live with it, you helped create it.

Dan Kelly, head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business says in a CBC article, “Retail, restaurant margins are already razor thin. I fully expect that particularly across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, there will be restaurant closures as a result of this, taking Canadian jobs with them.”

Of course Mr. Kelly is being disingenuous. He statement tries to blame razor thin margins as the catalyst of the current situation. What he is essentially saying is this, “We have to hire temporary foreign workers because Canadians would want higher wages and we cannot afford that because we charge too little for our products already.” Why is it the responsibility of the Canadian government if a restaurant is charging too little for its product to stay in business? Essentially, he is saying that his members are poor managers.

The big argument I always hear is how greedy Canadian workers are. How they don’t want to do anything or expect the world on a silver platter. That is generally not my experience. Canadians are hard workers, and all they ask of their job is that it pays a living wage. Sure, we have some stragglers, but all societies do. Mostly all Canadians want is a sense of fairness. Pay me what I deserve for a job well done and I’ll do it. And there is the problem, that deal has been broken.

Around here, the example brought up is our local hog processing plant. It is often stated how hard it is for the facility to find local workers, and that is why a foreign worker program was needed. In fact, our Mayor goes on about that in an article from Saturday’s National Post.

“The majority of day shift at Maple Leaf’s Brandon facility was staffed with local and regional hires, but there was never quite enough employees to run the plant at optimum efficiency, and no capacity within the regional labour force to staff a second shift, which was essential for the plant’s viability. There was no doubt that the local and regional labour market was not going to provide the workers needed for this demanding, physical work, regardless of how much the company paid, or how many additional benefits were offered.”

So, what Mayor Decter Hirst seems to be claiming here is that either the company didn’t have any foresight into the realities of the Brandon and Westman labour market, or that they did know and were planning on recruiting elsewhere from the start. I personally have no idea what Maple Leaf Foods plans were for Brandon and area, and I would like to think that they truly believed that they could find enough workers here. Was their research of the Brandon labour market that flawed? Did it exist? Were they just going by assurances of the local politicians at the time?

I do find it interesting that the exact same scenario has played out in town after town since Iowa Beef Packers, now Tyson Fresh Meats, first started lowering meat packing wages in the 1960s.

See: The Chain Never Stops by Eric Schlosser – Mother Jones

Here’s the thing that really bothers me about this program, and the Mayor’s love letter to Maple Leaf in the National Post, it goes against her self-claimed NDP roots. I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone in the NDP can support the TFWP.

I’m not talking about just our local situation here, all I see with this program is a continuation of the exploitation of the foreign worker that has been going on since the day of the building of the trans-continental railroad. You bring in a foreign worker to do a job. Sure, you pay them minimum wage or just above to do the job, so you feel good about yourself. To me that’s not enough. Many of these workers must stay in the job that they came over to do, even if someone was to offer them a job that paid more, was more in their field, or that fit them better. If the worker cannot leave the current employer for a better position, then how is that not indebted servitude? Just because you are paying someone does not mean you’re not treating them as a slave.

A couple weeks ago the CBC Radio program, Cross Country Checkup, had the TFWP as its topic. One caller ran a restaurant in a rural prairie town. Apparently the only way that they could keep in business was to have temporary foreign workers running the kitchen, as hometown people kept leaving the town. It never occurred to her that perhaps if the only way that she could keep her business open  was to bring in people who couldn’t leave, maybe her business was no longer viable; maybe her town is not either.

Cross Country Checkup
Is there a place for temporary foreign workers in Canada’s economy?

Taking advantage of someone’s poor job prospects in their home country does not make you a saint. If you believe in the free market, it makes you a hypocrite, plain and simple.

This is why I cannot understand the article written by Shari Decter Hirst. I’m not sure, despite being mayor, that she actually understands the situation. She says near the end of the article,

“Canada would be far better off to adopt Brandon’s approach of treating foreign workers as transitional workers and recruiting these individuals into secure jobs with opportunities to bring their families over. In my experience, these reunited families are focused on building a strong community for their children.”

I agree with her, Canada would be far better off to adopt such a policy, but that is not what Brandon has. I have always been in favour of immigration and multiculturalism. My argument is that if someone is good enough to be a temporary foreign worker, then they are good enough to be a landed immigrant and get to choose, like any other Canadian, where they want to live and work. Forcing them to work at one place, all the time fearing possible deportation, does not make for fair treatment. How is one supposed to advocate for fair working conditions and fair pay, the two hallmarks of the labour movement and of the NDP, if the employer holds all the cards?

It’s not a fair game, it’s stacked too much in favour of industry. It’s also not very Canadian, at least not the Canada I would want.

Is there a plan?

The Daly Overpass isn’t getting overhauled this year, or next year most likely. The province announced on Thursday that the First Street Bridge is in dire shape and work on it will need to be completed before any work on the Daly over on Eighteenth Street gets looked at.

In Saturday’s Brandon Sun (March 15, 2014) the editorial questioning who knew what about the bridge, and when, is a good read. Whether or not there was some political gamesmanship is not the main point of this post, however the question does come to mind.

To me, it appears that the province is buying time on Daly because they are having a hard time getting a plan together. First clue? They still say the bridge needs widening. My feeling is that the people saying that have not actually looked at the bridge. So, let’s take a look.

Daly2

Through the magic of what is Google Street View we can all look at the underside of said bridge. This picture is from Stickney Avenue looking south towards the “duck plant” building at the corner of Pacific and 18th. That my friends is a bridge that has already been widened. See those steel supports all the way along the left side? Those are holding up the sidewalk that is hanging off the eastern side of the bridge separated from the roadway by Jersey Barriers. That sidewalk is beyond the concrete supports that actually hold up the bridge. I’m no structural engineer, but my guess would be that those supports are at or near their design capacity while still supporting traffic.

My guess is that the province needs time to get a plan in order. A plan that requires expropriating land and demolishing a very large building. I cannot see how they avoid building another bridge beside the existing structure. To do that, they have to knock down the “duck plant” building and force the homeowners at Stickney Ave to move out. This is not going to be an easy task. Eighteenth Street northbound will have to be curved slightly east to meet a new bridge which means cutting through the mini mall parking lot at the corner of Pacific and 18th.

I frankly hope that I am wrong, but to the layperson widening this bridge does not seem possible; twinning will have to happen. I’d love to see someone investigate this further.

In the meantime, with no action on the Daly Overpass anytime soon, perhaps the city should apply for federal funding to help connect Hilton Avenue to 26th Street and send some traffic west, as mentioned in a previous post, “Is the Daly Overpass the Problem?”

26th-street.jpg

Got out the stopwatch…

Today I decided to get accurate figures on the time saved by the 8th Street Bridge.

With my spouse driving, we started at the “top” of the bridge on Pacific Avenue. Our route was west on Pacific until we reached 18th Street, north onto the bridge, east onto Maple, south on 17th St N, and then east on Stickney Avenue to the northern foot of the bridge. Our return trip was west on Stickney, north on 19th St N, east on Maple, south onto 18th Street, over the bridge, right on to the Pacific loop that goes under the bridge, and finally east on Pacific to the top of the bridge again.

Today’s weather was less than ideal, with light flurries and somewhat icy streets. At no time did she get over 40km/h during the trip. Being around 11:20 AM it was also getting somewhat busy.

Our trip north took us about 4 minutes and 10 seconds. Our trip south took us about 5 minutes and 30 seconds. I’m fairly sure that under better weather conditions, that this trip would have been much closer to the 3 minute mark. Also, less traffic on the Daly Overpass would have sped us up on the return trip. The only way you get less traffic on the Daly Overpass going south is if you move the traffic elsewhere, since we already have two southbound lanes. This supports my argument of paying more attention to the west side of the city.

Later, in the spring, I am going to drive the route again to see what we get.

Regardless, even if it took as much as 6 minutes to get around, the time savings is not worth upwards of $34,000,000.

Do you think that the taxpayers of Winnipeg or Vancouver would find it fiscally responsible to spend this many millions to save maybe 200 people a 5 minute commute?

I think not.

Where the Great Plains Begin

It is probably obvious that the name of this blog is in some way related to the Tragically Hip song “At The Hundredth Meridian”, but it is also a reference to where Brandon, Manitoba lies on the map.

 

So, why did I hone in on this? It actually goes back a few years. I was sitting in the car waiting for my wife to finish an errand that she was doing, when a story came on the radio about branding. Now, this is just after the horrific train wreck called Spirited Energy was introduced as a new branding for Manitoba. It did not go over well.

So, I’m sitting in the car and I’m thinking of the horrible job that was done “branding” Manitoba by an outside consulting firm, and I’m wondering if Manitobans could have done better. So I started brainstorming and it occurred to me that songs are usually a fertile place to look for such a brand. (To this day, if you play Stevie Wonder’s “A Place in the Sun” to a Westman resident over 40, they will think of Minnedosa).

So, I start thinking of Canadian and Manitoba artists and possible geographic references. The Guess Who come to mind, but “Running Back to Saskatoon” is hardly a song for Manitoba. Then I think of “At the Hundredth Meridian” by the Hip. Now, at first I’m thinking about Manitoba, but it soon occurs to me that this should be more about Brandon.

Why? Well, simply put, the 100th meridian west actually runs through Brandon. It barely hits the city, it’s right on the edge over on the west side, but it does run through it.

100th

The above picture from Google Earth is approximately where the 100th meridian passes through the city. It crosses Victoria Avenue just beside the Governor’s Gate Apartments.

So, when the city was talking years ago about iconic signage, It occurred to me that maybe Brandon should create new signs similar to some larger centres. Regina (example below) is a good example. Do a permanent sign at each entrance that says:

Brandon
Where the Great Plains Begin

To me it seems like a much better slogan than “You belong in Brandon”; “Where the Great Plains Begin” is particular to Brandon.

reginaThe whole point is to promote something unique about your city. Seriously, “You belong in Brandon” could be changed to “You belong in Treherne”, or “You Belong in Boise”. There is nothing distinct there.

I have floated the slogan before, and I had some really good responses from a few people. The main detractors seemed to fixate on the point that there are areas of prairie east of Brandon. They are kind of missing the point. A great slogan doesn’t have to be completely true to be effective. We’ve all heard “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”; it’s not technically true, but it makes a great slogan. Besides, there is a lot of truth in saying that the Great Plains begin in Brandon. There are areas of prairie to the east, but it is west of the city that the prairie landscape seems to continue uninterrupted; east the prairie gets broken up by areas such as the Carberry Sandhills. Brandon is the first major settlement firmly situated on the prairie. Other arguments have said that the Great Plains refers to the American plains, a semantic argument at most, and not completely true. Some just don’t like the Tragically Hip.

Anyway, I’ve floated the idea in the past, and unfortunately it just didn’t manage to catch on. At the very least I would like to see a sign on Victoria Avenue telling people that they are passing over “The 100th meridian… where the Great Plains Begin”. Then we can at least lay claim to it for the future.

If Cozad, Nebraska (Pop 4000) can do it, I would think we can.

Is the Daly Overpass the Problem?

The week after my last post on the 8th Street Bridge, there was a new provincial budget presented in Winnipeg by the governing NDP. One of the points, and few mentions of Brandon, was the “redevelopment” of the Daly Overpass. A few days later, local columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press Deveryn Ross tweeted the following:

Shortly followed up by:

Yes, I have to agree on both points. I’ve already made my case for not replacing the 8th Street Bridge with a new traffic bridge, but I also have some reservations about “redeveloping” the Daly Overpass.

For those not immediately aware, the Daly Overpass is that bridge over the train tracks on 18th Street at Pacific Avenue. It is two lanes headed south, but it reduces to one lane over the bridge headed north. During high use times, the congestion exists as far back as Victoria Avenue and is quickly becoming a sore spot in the city.

Now many people have suggested that the overpass needs to be expanded to 4 lanes, which would rectify the situation for a number of years. However, it is my contention that there are a few facts being ignored in this approach. The first is the actual bridge itself. I do remember the bridge being expanded once already in the very early 1990s. It was made wider and the sidewalk was widened and separated from the roadway by Jersey barriers. For this reason it seems to me that the bridge could not be “expanded” again, because the current bridge supports probably could not support the load. The only option would be to twin the bridge, moving one existing lane and a new lane onto a new bridge. I assume the “duck plant” building would be razed for this new bridge.

I think that Deveryn Ross’ suggestion of less expensive ways may hold some water. If not less expensive, at least something that allows for future growth and actually pays attention to what is the underlying problem of why there is so much traffic on 18th Street.

If you look at a map of Brandon, it becomes evident that the three main ways over the CP tracks all are within a one mile stretch. You can get over the tracks at 26th Street, but it is a level crossing so most people make it their last choice; plus you have to slow down and turn at McDonald Ave which is not built as a main arterial street. So you have 1st, 8th, and 18th Streets which all have a bridge over the tracks; no stopping for a train. After 18th you have 26th which has the aforementioned problems, and then you have…

Kemnay

Yes, the next spot that you can get over the tracks (well, under) is Kemnay, almost 6 miles west of the city.

And that is your problem. Everyone from about 12th Street and west wants to go over the tracks at 18th street, converging on a single lane at the Daly Overpass. No wonder the thing gets backed up.

My solution, and I’ve been saying this for years now on other venues, is that we have to build a faster route west of 18th Street for people to get to the north end of the city. At the very least we have to make it faster. There seem to be two possibilities.

First option, extend 26th Street to curve over to Hilton Ave near the water treatment plant.

26th street

Now, this doesn’t immediately alleviate the problem with the level crossing at the CP main line on 26th Street, but it does speed up the trip from 26th to 18th enough that more people would most likely use the route. If we ever got an underpass or overpass at the tracks it would be a much more effective way to move traffic to the west of the city than over the Daly Overpass.

Second option, extend 34th street over the tracks and past the parking lot at the Wheat City Golf Course, then over the river to Grand Valley Road.

34th street

A couple of buildings would be razed, but it would work and you would have an express route from the west end to the Corral Centre shopping area. I’ve heard it said that there isn’t a viable route there, but I think there is. The only concern would be the fact of having to build the roadway up to a height and strength to withstand the flooding that we know happens to the area. It would probably be more expensive than a Daly Overpass “redevelopment”, but in the long run would most likely be a more effective transportation network.

It seems to me that we have trouble identifying what the real issue with traffic is in our small city, and therefore do not look for the right solutions. It just does not make sense to “fix” a road that has too much traffic on it rather than finding a way to get the extra traffic off of it.

We need to work the root of the problem and not just treat the symptoms.

*images courtesy of Google Earth.

A bridge unneeded…

There seems to be this feeling that just because you’ve always had something a certain way, that it should stay that way. At least that seems to be the attitude when it comes to the Eighth Street bridge in Brandon.

A couple of years ago Dillon Consulting was tasked with the job of coming up with plans for the aging structure. It is obvious to anybody looking at the structure that the bridge is nearing the end of its useful life, at least as a traffic bridge.

So, they came up with 4 options. All of them replaced the bridge in some fashion with another traffic bridge. According to a story in the Brandon Sun last week, the costs for these options range from $20 million to $34 million. Let me write that long hand:

$20,000,000.00
to
$34,000,000.00

This is where the study falls down. Where is option E? Build an “active transportation” link, for walking and cycling, and forget about building a new traffic bridge. It seems to me that in 2013 that the “no bridge” option is perhaps the best.

The problem lies in the fact that some people think that they are having something taken away from them. I recall some discussion on eBrandon about option E and there was definitely some resistance to not having a traffic link to downtown. However, if you really start to think about it, there is not really a good reason to have a traffic bridge between downtown and “The Flats”.

What are the reasons to have a traffic bridge between the two areas?

The first reason seems to be that the 18th Street Bridge is seen as too far away to be an effective link for the area. Some simple math shows this to be untrue. At 50km/h it should take about 45 seconds to get to 18th, about 30 to get over the bridge, and another 45 to get back to the other side of the 8th street bridge. At the speed limit it should take less than three minutes to make the trip, probably closer to two.

The second argument I’ve heard is about ambulance times to the hospital. My first point partly addresses this, and I suspect that at ambulance speeds that the extra time would be negligible. Combine that with the fact that the new fire hall is essentially IN the same neighbourhood and it could be argued that “the flats” have some of the fastest response times from the time of the call to the front door of the emergency department at the hospital. Someone calling from the west end would certainly have longer wait times both ways.

Yes, I can see how an active transportation link to the flats would be considered needed. On foot or bicycle, the distance is too far to go around, but in a car it is not enough of a hindrance to spend $20 million to $34 million.

In my opinion, the eighth street bridge cuts the neighbourhood in half that it is supposed to serve. The whole area looks like a nice place except for that area directly adjacent to the bridge. I personally feel that if the bridge was gone and had only a pedestrian bridge in its place, it would positively affect the neighbourhood. I suspect that most of the traffic is a shortcut to the Corral Centre and that 8th Street North would be safer without it.

Money saved could be used to start improving other routes west of Eighteenth Street where the traffic bottleneck really originates, or improving pedestrian safety in other areas. (Try walking down Currie Boulevard almost any day of the year, and you will not be able to comprehend the lack of a sidewalk for the people of Brentwood to get to the rest of the city. But that is another topic for another post.)

There is no sensible, economically sound reason to replace the Eighth Street bridge with another traffic bridge. 

None.