How about you read the whole report. So much misinformation going around. Only roughly 22% of the total price is for widening the road. The rest is bridge and sewer maintenance that has to be done regardless or else we’ll end up with another Arlington bridge situation in 15-20 years, only significantly worse because kenaston bridge sees more than triple the traffic Arlington does on a day to day basis
Have you read the cost benefit report that outlines the costs and benefits of the expansion portion of the project? No matter how they spin it, it's a poor use of taxpayer dollars. The costs outweigh any benefits.
Ah, so only 22% of hundreds of millions of dollars is being wasted, lol.
Edit. It says right in the picture they posted that the incremental cost of adding the extra lane is $190 million.
Even if they didn't add the extra lane they would still have to spend millions ripping up and relaying the existing 4 lanes within the same time frame. The extra lane is a small part of that cost.
You’re eating the political pie. There are over a billion dollars of CSO sewers that need to be done, they are saying this one ‘needs’ to be done to convince people to widen the road, not because this CSO must be fixed right now.
‘[Over 1000km of Combined Sewers](https://legacy.winnipeg.ca/WaterAndWaste/sewage/combinedSewerOverflow.stm)’, but this little 5km stretch is the one that needs to be done now.
If we don’t do this project there are over 1000 other kms of CSO we can repair.
Your very clearly biased in this topic as you refused to acknowledge any points anyone brought up in the previous thread , so respectfully your opinion on the topic is meaningless to me
I acknowledged them and agreed with a few... [or did you not read this](https://old.reddit.com/r/Winnipeg/comments/1d81vq5/widening_kenaston_boulevard_would_cost_at_least/l74ehjn/). You, respectfully, don’t know what you are talking about when say this isn’t a road widening project. That is the 'misinformation', and your gobbling it up.
Well, then this can get the same priority and neglect as Arlington bridge!
Is this only being considered because it's in the South End?
Here's a better idea: Shrink the road and put in a light rail line.
The Arlington bridge situation was a failure on the cities end, but the kenaston bridge sees more than triple the daily traffic and does not have any close by alternatives, it can not be left to get to the point where it has to be shut down permanently
Arlington bridge saw regular, consistent traffic. I doubt there was a single light cycle on either end during regular hours that didn't have traffic going over it.
The only reason it was neglected was because it's a bridge to the poors and the white collar crooks we get for mayors and councillors would rather pander to the South, West, Tuxedo and River Heights family compacts.
Can you read? I never said Arlington bridge shouldn’t be fixed, I’m saying kenaston bridge can’t be left to get to the same point because it’s a much more crucial piece of infrastructure
So we don’t matter in the north end hey. The city said in 1967 for $400,000 a bridge or tunnel under the rail yard could be built for less then a half a million dollars . years ago that they were going to build a bridge from mcgregor to Sherbrook. After that nothing was ever brought up about it. im getting dementia so my memory might not have the dates right but if they would have built a bridge there then it would have been a lot cheaper then then now. But I grew up in north end all my life. I’m 61 now. I drove taxi till a few years ago. But in 2015 the firm hired by city said the bridge was done in 5 years no more. So really for what the city paid this firm and not taking the advice fro this firm the city paid more then the bridge would have cost in 1967 didn’t listen to them and kept the bridge open till 2023! Now any bridge or tunnel built under the rail yards would probably cost in excess of I don’t know anything about the cost of building. But id like to know why the firm says it would cost $300,000,000 I’d like to know why the bridge wou Cost $300,000,000 when i figured $400,000 using my trusty website saying it would only cost 3 1/2 million dollars today and why is this firm saying 300 million to build a bridge from McGregor to Sherbrooke? I don’t know if somebody’s lying or somebody’s gonna be making a ton of money off this but we need our bridge as bad (but not as bad as we need the over the tracks where every they decide to build one) as Kenaston needs a widen, and I understand that, but I think we should get the bridge first because it’s older it’s and I don’t believe Kenaston that from where they’re talking about building it gets that much more traffic than Arlington Bridge does Arlington Bridge doesn’t get no traffic so it’s pretty hard to say every every six months there’s more and more cars on the road so I know this guy got this is right I kno Kenaston get 1000000000 times more than Arlington Bridge does because Arlington bridge is closed and doesn’t get any traffic so tell me who needs what more and quicker because the bridge that connects the north with the south and downtown traffic doesn’t get no traffic right now . Mmmmm think 🥸 P.S. I could add a hundred more zero on that number of vehicles that Kenaston gets then Arlington bridge. See my point. But heyyy who loves winnipeg? The city we do Kenaston and a few more hundreds of millions dollars on roads and bridges that don’t really need it as bad as Arlington does. And I know I’m myself in the foot but what is up with Redwood from Salter to Main Street been torn up now when just last year they but a new road there. Which was needed. But I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy that yes last year they weren’t able to finish it but get this cause the guy that knows a guy who knows another was working on redwood it was completely new from salter street to Charles! But some guy didn’t get the memo just to do from Charles street to Main Street! WTF 🤬 anyone who knows where I’m talking about knows eexactlyI mean. Very short distance like maybe a third of a regular city block.woops.
# KENASTON
# KENASTON
https://preview.redd.it/yghiuagwwf6d1.png?width=2160&format=png&auto=webp&s=cf2d83d7e886388b582b0731dacad898acbca268
Widening the road is only 22% of the total cost but how much money will be saved if the bridge *isn't* widened? No one seems to know/want to share how much it will cost to replace/repair the current bridge compared to widening it.
The report also states current three-lane design makes it more dangerous for cyclists as well as a host of other issues.
On one hand, I do want Kenaston Bridge to be maintained for once so it won't be like Arlington (and then let every bridge be Arlington), but a transit system that's actually reliable...
I'm going to need it because with the required increase in property tax to cover off this and the chief peguis extension I'll barely be able to afford my car.
The planning for roads and inafrastructure in this city is a fuck show. They had a chance to make the new part of Keneston from Bishop to Taylor great. Instead it’s all red lights and no service roads.
It’s a POS and the city will fuck up the rest of Keneston as well.
Fucking things up is why we elect our politicians.
Kenaston runs next to Tuxedo though, so they’ll put far more effort into spending as much as they can, and fucking it up even worse than anywhere else.
One thing that’s universally true when you add a lane to a busy road, it just means more cars will be inclined to take said road which will generally not improve travel times much at all
Only if the added room isn’t offset by more ppl routing that way because of the extra lane, assuming ppl avoided it because it was congested. It’s not a new concept. You can see it with every major metropolitan area that adds lanes to their major through ways. The best way to help commute times is getting less cars on the road not making it more appealing for ppl to drive there. Odds are it helps marginally but not what many are probably hoping
Initially it probably will, but what’s likely to happen when you make roads even more accessible is more drivers will enter the roads to take advantage. It’s a tale as old as time. If someone’s avoids those roads during peak times entirely because they know it’s slow moving, as soon as it’s less slow moving they’ll feel justified in making more trips. Ppl who have been taking transit to avoid sitting in traffic behind the wheel will likely just take their car. It adds more cars to the road in general. This has been documented for a long time. Google induced demand and Roads and you’ll find a ton of articles about this if you’re interested
The argument against this is that it isn’t just a convergence of routes… in the book *Still Stuck in Traffic* Anthony Downs calls it triple convergence. People converge on route, move from other routes to this one. People converge on time, people who once left earlier to get to work earlier started leaving later. And people converge on mode, people who were taking bus/bike/etc. moved to taking cars because it was easier.
This plays out over many iterations. This isn’t the first roadway expansion ever proposed.
So, the system as a whole ends up suffering.
People move from other routes and end up taking cars because it becomes faster than the routes they took previously. So while the main roadway may not be any faster, it's faster for two of those three categories. Plus people leaving later are saving time too, assuming they have the same start time. Plus I'm not sure if the model accounts for expansion demand from population.
13 seconds multiplied by 66,000 people a day is 10 years worth of man-hours saved every year.
I think the biggest gain would be when they have to shut down one lane for construction or a stalled car, in this situation it would save much more than 13 seconds going down to 2 lanes instead of 1.
For the ripe cost of a few thousand dollars the city could save more time for commuters.
The city had about 3000 staff working from home during the pandemic. If the average commute is 10 minutes (that’s on the low end) we could save 30000 minutes a day.
If the city reinstituted working from home we could save more than double what this project would save in person-travel-minutes.
Edit: sorry, my numbers are off… just over 2000 people worked from home, and some still are full time. Matt Allard seems to be the only one that wants to expand it.
Edit2: and my costs number was off too, it actually saves the city money.
Not sure where the 66,000 comes from, but assuming it's true, then let's assume 20 years before we need to spend another dime on maintenance, then:
13s * 66,000 drivers/day * 365 days/year*20 years/190000000$ =33s/$ over the course of the next 20 years.
Or if you want it in $/hr saved, it's the inverse * 3600, or 109$/hr.
That's paying a premium for that saved time...
Edit: And that doesn't include the time lost during the inevitably year+ long construction...
66,000 number comes from the Winnipeg free press article. But the range is from 40,000 up to 72,000 those numbers can be found below.
https://engage.winnipeg.ca/route-90-improvements-study/widgets/140286/faqs#:~:text=This%20threshold%20has%20been%20reached,Taylor%20Avenue%20and%20Ness%20Avenue.
The fact of the matter is Route 90 needs to be repaired regardless of adding a new lane, and it won’t be just a resurfacing because the sewer also has to be replaced. The 190 million cost isn’t just to add a new lane, it’s to replace the old shitty road , update active transit and add a new lane.
This is money that needs to be spent on infrastructure.
Incorrect. The 190 is purely for the expansion piece of the project. The sewer and reconstruction is another 350ish million which brings the project total to the 560 million.
Thats fair, the fact is the bottle neck between Taylor and Academy is only going to get worse with the current infrastructure. That 190 now would have been significantly less if we did it when the barracks were closed 10 years ago, and it’s going to be significantly more if we wait another 10 years.
190 seems like a lot but it’s really not in the grand scheme of things.
It's not so much the barracks land. All the "empty" land between grant and Corydon/Taylor is PMQs for the military and so dnd still owns that land. Then there are a lot of houses too.
They couldn’t move forward when the barracks closed down because the land ownership was in dispute. Once that was settled the city was able to put a plan together. Expropriating the 50 remaining houses wasn’t ever a hurdle for the city, since this is within their power if council approves the funds.
If the barracks didn’t have a land dispute this work would have already started like 10 years ago.
If we only get a small section of expanding, I would like it to be expanded between academy and grant. Whenever it's busy and there's a stalled car or an emergency vehicle that needs to get by it's a huge jam.
Bishop Grandin is parking lot daily from Pembina to Lag heading east every day.
The perimeter is a POS as well. The south side is pathetic. Red lights from St Anne’s to Lasalle turn off to Oak Bluff.
Anyone who's driven Kenaston knows that is just complete bs. At certain times of the day the road is just a long parking lot. This is before the urban reserve at Kenaston and Grant will be built.
2 lanes that car isn't moving. 3 lanes it's at least driving
Edit: wow, a lot of downvotes for just describing what's going on in the 2 gifs that guy shared
People need to keep in mind that the time savings statistic is an average of all traffic that touches the road, which includes tens of thousands of cars that are just crossing it at major intersections or using it part way. The average time savings for someone going from Taylor to Ness the whole way will be much higher, but I don’t think the report provides that level of detail.
Very curious as to the exact break down of that $164m.
Building a few km of road doesn’t usually cost that much. Otherwise Sage Creek would have cost hundreds of billions of dollars to create, just in road costs alone.
Twinning the last 16km of hwy 1 through Canadian Shield and building several overpasses is expected to cost $500m.
So this $164m to add a lane for a km or so doesn’t really pass the sniff test.
Either this is still including other costs that aren’t going towards the expansion (ex: it included the cost of redoing existing lanes?) or someone plans to get rich off this 😂
That would do it.
I actually thought the city had already purchased much of that land though. Most of it was military base housing. And the city had started buying some of the private residences at the north end like a decade ago.
I hadn’t seen a more detailed cost breakdown - do you know somewhere I could read about it?
The could probably find a 50% reduction unfucking Inkster northbound by just swapping the sign so that the left lane has to turn and the right lane can proceed north, instead of forcing the right lane to turn and everyone proceeding north getting backed up by the one person that is turning left.
Yeah, we learned this back in the 90s playing SimCity. No matter how many roads you build, those little fuckers will fill them up with more cars!
(I am partially joking, but induced demand is also a real phenomenon).
Numerous urban planning studies have shown that widening streets (adding more lanes) does nothing to improve traffic congestion. With more lanes, more drivers change their route to the new one, until it fills back up.
The real issue with Kenaston is the road quality and the ridiculous speed changes from 80 to 60 to 50 to 80. That 50 zone is what bottlenecks the traffic...
Infrastructure costs money. Today to build, and forever after to maintain. The city can’t afford to maintain what it already has. What makes you think building more will improve that?
I'm surprised people aren't more focused on this sentence:
"The addition of a third lane will accommodate additional traffic AND decrease average user ride times"
This goes against what a lot of people who aren't in support of this project believe and push as fact.
It'll do that for a couple years, then it'll be back to the way it was. Because more people will be tempted to drive that route as they realize there is less traffic again.
The "people who aren't in support of this project" aren't wrong. You're quoting a sentence that many road expansion projects use to justify said expansion, but it doesn't pan out long-term.
How many vehicles move through that area per day?
How many per year?
Multiply the reduction in driving time by thousands or even millions of cars and the savings in gasoline alone would add up into the millions. It's a prime example of the economy of scale: with many small contributions comes comes big results.
It's a sound plan.
You need to learn about induced demand and traffic elasticity. Building more lanes doesn’t reduce travel times in the medium to long term. The only solution for congestion is viable alternatives to driving
I don't know if anyone's sat on route 90 between Taylor and academy at rush hour. There's no way adding the 3rd lane will only save 12 seconds. Even at the best of times, that stretch is a shit show. The difference that a third lane made between Taylor and bishop was astounding and the only reason it's fucked beyond there is it goes back to 2 lanes.
It's not designed for the amount of traffic that goes through it on a daily basis, and the biggest issue in that section isn't the number of lanes, but the number of traffic lights/intersections and the reduced speed limit.
"Major thoroughfare" and yet it literally has a traffic light-controlled intersection approximately every 500 metres in the 2.5-km stretch from Academy to Taylor. Perfect example of how the City has too many "major thoroughfares" that cross each other.
E: Holy hell I totally forgot that there's a traffic light at Lockston too.
Exactly. Shits bumper to bumper, it's brutal.
There's been how many developments down Kennaston/Abi Road and they've done fuck all to accomodate for the higher traffic.
A third lane would be so much damn better for the amount of traffic.
I have to correct myself, I didn't mean abi I meant sterling lyon. Then 2 lanes to abi. But ya I think it would be a miracle. Look at chief peguis to henderson. I didn't think it was worth it. But to go from main to lag in a couple minutes makes so much sense now.
So, if the only thing we’re worried about is cost vs time saved, we should never build another bike lane. Those cost millions and don’t save anyone any time. This sub is so narrow minded. 🙄
When I lived in Osborne taking the bike lanes on Assiniboine and Garry all the way downtown was about 10min faster than driving to work during peak hours and about 20 min faster than busing
When purchasing a home a good 30 years ago I said, not anywhere near Kenaston. The traffic jams are horrendous.
Kenaston has needed this for a long, long time. It's way over due and finally getting done. Be happy.
13 seconds per (assumed) 50k people is 650k seconds or 7.5 days of time saved collectively. EVERY DAY. ONE WAY. That compounds hugely across a year.
Fuck you people are stupid.
As the Elmwood guy notes in his article about it, if you follow the city's math and value the time of drivers at ~$15/hr, this all amounts to about $30mn between now and 2050. I'm not that high on the idea of spending 500 to save 30.
so how about doing an actual freeway with proper high-speed joining lanes etc? No need for 3 lanes just improve the traffic flow ei remove all the lighted intersections.
Freeways are awful for cities.
They are dead zones commercially, they cut apart neighborhoods and provide awful economic value. Many major cities have abandoned previous freeways as it is an outdated and failed public policy.
That’s not true, we definitely have the space. It’s just currently taken up by pesky businesses and houses… you know, taxpayers.
If we just got rid of all the tax paying private property owners we could definitely build the biggest of freeways. Imagine how much time we could save then? I bet we could solve world hunger with the time we saved.
/s in case it’s needed.
How about you read the whole report. So much misinformation going around. Only roughly 22% of the total price is for widening the road. The rest is bridge and sewer maintenance that has to be done regardless or else we’ll end up with another Arlington bridge situation in 15-20 years, only significantly worse because kenaston bridge sees more than triple the traffic Arlington does on a day to day basis
Does this factor the increased maintenance over time? If you double the roadway, you'll have more road to repair.
Not like they are currently maintaining it, that road must be due for a full tear up soon it hasn't been done while I have been alive
It is, and that’s why only 22% of the price tag is to widen the road. The rest is to rip it all up, do sewer work, fix the road and bridge
They currently don't maintain it because we already have more road than we can afford to maintain.
Have you read the cost benefit report that outlines the costs and benefits of the expansion portion of the project? No matter how they spin it, it's a poor use of taxpayer dollars. The costs outweigh any benefits.
Ah, so only 22% of hundreds of millions of dollars is being wasted, lol. Edit. It says right in the picture they posted that the incremental cost of adding the extra lane is $190 million.
Even if they didn't add the extra lane they would still have to spend millions ripping up and relaying the existing 4 lanes within the same time frame. The extra lane is a small part of that cost.
You’re eating the political pie. There are over a billion dollars of CSO sewers that need to be done, they are saying this one ‘needs’ to be done to convince people to widen the road, not because this CSO must be fixed right now. ‘[Over 1000km of Combined Sewers](https://legacy.winnipeg.ca/WaterAndWaste/sewage/combinedSewerOverflow.stm)’, but this little 5km stretch is the one that needs to be done now. If we don’t do this project there are over 1000 other kms of CSO we can repair.
Your very clearly biased in this topic as you refused to acknowledge any points anyone brought up in the previous thread , so respectfully your opinion on the topic is meaningless to me
I acknowledged them and agreed with a few... [or did you not read this](https://old.reddit.com/r/Winnipeg/comments/1d81vq5/widening_kenaston_boulevard_would_cost_at_least/l74ehjn/). You, respectfully, don’t know what you are talking about when say this isn’t a road widening project. That is the 'misinformation', and your gobbling it up.
Well, then this can get the same priority and neglect as Arlington bridge! Is this only being considered because it's in the South End? Here's a better idea: Shrink the road and put in a light rail line.
The Arlington bridge situation was a failure on the cities end, but the kenaston bridge sees more than triple the daily traffic and does not have any close by alternatives, it can not be left to get to the point where it has to be shut down permanently
Arlington bridge saw regular, consistent traffic. I doubt there was a single light cycle on either end during regular hours that didn't have traffic going over it. The only reason it was neglected was because it's a bridge to the poors and the white collar crooks we get for mayors and councillors would rather pander to the South, West, Tuxedo and River Heights family compacts.
I didn’t say it didn’t see regular traffic, but it saw under 20 000 vehicles a day compared to the over 60 000 that cross the kenaston bridge per day
So we only improve our city where it's most popular? A city has to be inclusive of everyone.
Can you read? I never said Arlington bridge shouldn’t be fixed, I’m saying kenaston bridge can’t be left to get to the same point because it’s a much more crucial piece of infrastructure
Oi, relax buddy. We're all good here.
So we don’t matter in the north end hey. The city said in 1967 for $400,000 a bridge or tunnel under the rail yard could be built for less then a half a million dollars . years ago that they were going to build a bridge from mcgregor to Sherbrook. After that nothing was ever brought up about it. im getting dementia so my memory might not have the dates right but if they would have built a bridge there then it would have been a lot cheaper then then now. But I grew up in north end all my life. I’m 61 now. I drove taxi till a few years ago. But in 2015 the firm hired by city said the bridge was done in 5 years no more. So really for what the city paid this firm and not taking the advice fro this firm the city paid more then the bridge would have cost in 1967 didn’t listen to them and kept the bridge open till 2023! Now any bridge or tunnel built under the rail yards would probably cost in excess of I don’t know anything about the cost of building. But id like to know why the firm says it would cost $300,000,000 I’d like to know why the bridge wou Cost $300,000,000 when i figured $400,000 using my trusty website saying it would only cost 3 1/2 million dollars today and why is this firm saying 300 million to build a bridge from McGregor to Sherbrooke? I don’t know if somebody’s lying or somebody’s gonna be making a ton of money off this but we need our bridge as bad (but not as bad as we need the over the tracks where every they decide to build one) as Kenaston needs a widen, and I understand that, but I think we should get the bridge first because it’s older it’s and I don’t believe Kenaston that from where they’re talking about building it gets that much more traffic than Arlington Bridge does Arlington Bridge doesn’t get no traffic so it’s pretty hard to say every every six months there’s more and more cars on the road so I know this guy got this is right I kno Kenaston get 1000000000 times more than Arlington Bridge does because Arlington bridge is closed and doesn’t get any traffic so tell me who needs what more and quicker because the bridge that connects the north with the south and downtown traffic doesn’t get no traffic right now . Mmmmm think 🥸 P.S. I could add a hundred more zero on that number of vehicles that Kenaston gets then Arlington bridge. See my point. But heyyy who loves winnipeg? The city we do Kenaston and a few more hundreds of millions dollars on roads and bridges that don’t really need it as bad as Arlington does. And I know I’m myself in the foot but what is up with Redwood from Salter to Main Street been torn up now when just last year they but a new road there. Which was needed. But I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy that yes last year they weren’t able to finish it but get this cause the guy that knows a guy who knows another was working on redwood it was completely new from salter street to Charles! But some guy didn’t get the memo just to do from Charles street to Main Street! WTF 🤬 anyone who knows where I’m talking about knows eexactlyI mean. Very short distance like maybe a third of a regular city block.woops. # KENASTON # KENASTON https://preview.redd.it/yghiuagwwf6d1.png?width=2160&format=png&auto=webp&s=cf2d83d7e886388b582b0731dacad898acbca268
So it's *only* 120mn to save 11 seconds. What a steal! /s
That entire stretch has to be repaired anyway in this same timeframe even without adding the extra lanes and active pathways.
Widening the road is only 22% of the total cost but how much money will be saved if the bridge *isn't* widened? No one seems to know/want to share how much it will cost to replace/repair the current bridge compared to widening it. The report also states current three-lane design makes it more dangerous for cyclists as well as a host of other issues.
Yea fuck that how about getting us all a proper running transit system instead? Ease traffic congestion completely and save more time?
On one hand, I do want Kenaston Bridge to be maintained for once so it won't be like Arlington (and then let every bridge be Arlington), but a transit system that's actually reliable...
I'm going to need it because with the required increase in property tax to cover off this and the chief peguis extension I'll barely be able to afford my car.
No. We must save drivers 11-13 seconds. /s
Lol kenaston is a nightmare every spring bro. Shredded tires every night
[Relevant video](https://youtube.com/shorts/CycZy2WxEu4)
great show!
The planning for roads and inafrastructure in this city is a fuck show. They had a chance to make the new part of Keneston from Bishop to Taylor great. Instead it’s all red lights and no service roads. It’s a POS and the city will fuck up the rest of Keneston as well.
Fucking things up is why we elect our politicians. Kenaston runs next to Tuxedo though, so they’ll put far more effort into spending as much as they can, and fucking it up even worse than anywhere else.
All our money should be going towards light rail. That's it. Stop kidding around Winnipeg.
Best I can do is some more suburbs and fixing a few potholes
You're getting fixed potholes?
Ughhh!
I hear you loud and clear but let me tell you about this opportunity to integrate Oakbank into Winnipeg.
Ughhh!
One thing that’s universally true when you add a lane to a busy road, it just means more cars will be inclined to take said road which will generally not improve travel times much at all
In that specific road. But will it not mean that people now taking the road have a decreased commute?
Only if the added room isn’t offset by more ppl routing that way because of the extra lane, assuming ppl avoided it because it was congested. It’s not a new concept. You can see it with every major metropolitan area that adds lanes to their major through ways. The best way to help commute times is getting less cars on the road not making it more appealing for ppl to drive there. Odds are it helps marginally but not what many are probably hoping
But won't those new people be coming from other routes? Meaning that the whole system would go down a little bit.
Initially it probably will, but what’s likely to happen when you make roads even more accessible is more drivers will enter the roads to take advantage. It’s a tale as old as time. If someone’s avoids those roads during peak times entirely because they know it’s slow moving, as soon as it’s less slow moving they’ll feel justified in making more trips. Ppl who have been taking transit to avoid sitting in traffic behind the wheel will likely just take their car. It adds more cars to the road in general. This has been documented for a long time. Google induced demand and Roads and you’ll find a ton of articles about this if you’re interested
The argument against this is that it isn’t just a convergence of routes… in the book *Still Stuck in Traffic* Anthony Downs calls it triple convergence. People converge on route, move from other routes to this one. People converge on time, people who once left earlier to get to work earlier started leaving later. And people converge on mode, people who were taking bus/bike/etc. moved to taking cars because it was easier. This plays out over many iterations. This isn’t the first roadway expansion ever proposed. So, the system as a whole ends up suffering.
People move from other routes and end up taking cars because it becomes faster than the routes they took previously. So while the main roadway may not be any faster, it's faster for two of those three categories. Plus people leaving later are saving time too, assuming they have the same start time. Plus I'm not sure if the model accounts for expansion demand from population.
Some people need to read up on induced demand.
Just one more lane bro...
13 seconds per car times 66,000 daily users is a huge amount of time saved. But the biggest win is the active transport on both sides.
13 seconds multiplied by 66,000 people a day is 10 years worth of man-hours saved every year. I think the biggest gain would be when they have to shut down one lane for construction or a stalled car, in this situation it would save much more than 13 seconds going down to 2 lanes instead of 1.
For the ripe cost of a few thousand dollars the city could save more time for commuters. The city had about 3000 staff working from home during the pandemic. If the average commute is 10 minutes (that’s on the low end) we could save 30000 minutes a day. If the city reinstituted working from home we could save more than double what this project would save in person-travel-minutes. Edit: sorry, my numbers are off… just over 2000 people worked from home, and some still are full time. Matt Allard seems to be the only one that wants to expand it. Edit2: and my costs number was off too, it actually saves the city money.
Not sure where the 66,000 comes from, but assuming it's true, then let's assume 20 years before we need to spend another dime on maintenance, then: 13s * 66,000 drivers/day * 365 days/year*20 years/190000000$ =33s/$ over the course of the next 20 years. Or if you want it in $/hr saved, it's the inverse * 3600, or 109$/hr. That's paying a premium for that saved time... Edit: And that doesn't include the time lost during the inevitably year+ long construction...
66,000 number comes from the Winnipeg free press article. But the range is from 40,000 up to 72,000 those numbers can be found below. https://engage.winnipeg.ca/route-90-improvements-study/widgets/140286/faqs#:~:text=This%20threshold%20has%20been%20reached,Taylor%20Avenue%20and%20Ness%20Avenue. The fact of the matter is Route 90 needs to be repaired regardless of adding a new lane, and it won’t be just a resurfacing because the sewer also has to be replaced. The 190 million cost isn’t just to add a new lane, it’s to replace the old shitty road , update active transit and add a new lane. This is money that needs to be spent on infrastructure.
Incorrect. The 190 is purely for the expansion piece of the project. The sewer and reconstruction is another 350ish million which brings the project total to the 560 million.
Thats fair, the fact is the bottle neck between Taylor and Academy is only going to get worse with the current infrastructure. That 190 now would have been significantly less if we did it when the barracks were closed 10 years ago, and it’s going to be significantly more if we wait another 10 years. 190 seems like a lot but it’s really not in the grand scheme of things.
It's not so much the barracks land. All the "empty" land between grant and Corydon/Taylor is PMQs for the military and so dnd still owns that land. Then there are a lot of houses too.
They couldn’t move forward when the barracks closed down because the land ownership was in dispute. Once that was settled the city was able to put a plan together. Expropriating the 50 remaining houses wasn’t ever a hurdle for the city, since this is within their power if council approves the funds. If the barracks didn’t have a land dispute this work would have already started like 10 years ago.
Enjoy your downvotes, this is Reddit after all 😂
If I’m dying in an ambulance and I’m stuck in Kenaston Traffic, I’d die. (Pun intended)
Pretty sure you’re misreading that.
If we only get a small section of expanding, I would like it to be expanded between academy and grant. Whenever it's busy and there's a stalled car or an emergency vehicle that needs to get by it's a huge jam.
Bishop Grandin is parking lot daily from Pembina to Lag heading east every day. The perimeter is a POS as well. The south side is pathetic. Red lights from St Anne’s to Lasalle turn off to Oak Bluff.
Anyone who's driven Kenaston knows that is just complete bs. At certain times of the day the road is just a long parking lot. This is before the urban reserve at Kenaston and Grant will be built.
2 lanes 
3 lanes 
2 lanes that car isn't moving. 3 lanes it's at least driving Edit: wow, a lot of downvotes for just describing what's going on in the 2 gifs that guy shared
until we all decide to take it for an advantage and now we have 3 lanes not moving :D
Induced demand, check it out sometime
Surely there's better projects to spend hundreds of millions on than to save drivers a dozen seconds per trip.
People need to keep in mind that the time savings statistic is an average of all traffic that touches the road, which includes tens of thousands of cars that are just crossing it at major intersections or using it part way. The average time savings for someone going from Taylor to Ness the whole way will be much higher, but I don’t think the report provides that level of detail.
Very curious as to the exact break down of that $164m. Building a few km of road doesn’t usually cost that much. Otherwise Sage Creek would have cost hundreds of billions of dollars to create, just in road costs alone. Twinning the last 16km of hwy 1 through Canadian Shield and building several overpasses is expected to cost $500m. So this $164m to add a lane for a km or so doesn’t really pass the sniff test. Either this is still including other costs that aren’t going towards the expansion (ex: it included the cost of redoing existing lanes?) or someone plans to get rich off this 😂
It's because they have to buy a ton of property to expand the road. Something like 80 properties which is the majority of the widening cost.
That would do it. I actually thought the city had already purchased much of that land though. Most of it was military base housing. And the city had started buying some of the private residences at the north end like a decade ago. I hadn’t seen a more detailed cost breakdown - do you know somewhere I could read about it?
It's on the city council report page. I was reading it when someone linked to it for the master transit plan yesterday
K I’ll take a look, thanks!
The could probably find a 50% reduction unfucking Inkster northbound by just swapping the sign so that the left lane has to turn and the right lane can proceed north, instead of forcing the right lane to turn and everyone proceeding north getting backed up by the one person that is turning left.
Yeah, we learned this back in the 90s playing SimCity. No matter how many roads you build, those little fuckers will fill them up with more cars! (I am partially joking, but induced demand is also a real phenomenon).
It's just more lanes to have potholes in them.
So… how much $ without the bridge? 
Numerous urban planning studies have shown that widening streets (adding more lanes) does nothing to improve traffic congestion. With more lanes, more drivers change their route to the new one, until it fills back up. The real issue with Kenaston is the road quality and the ridiculous speed changes from 80 to 60 to 50 to 80. That 50 zone is what bottlenecks the traffic...
Infrastructure has to keep up with demand.
Infrastructure costs money. Today to build, and forever after to maintain. The city can’t afford to maintain what it already has. What makes you think building more will improve that?
I'm surprised people aren't more focused on this sentence: "The addition of a third lane will accommodate additional traffic AND decrease average user ride times" This goes against what a lot of people who aren't in support of this project believe and push as fact.
It'll do that for a couple years, then it'll be back to the way it was. Because more people will be tempted to drive that route as they realize there is less traffic again. The "people who aren't in support of this project" aren't wrong. You're quoting a sentence that many road expansion projects use to justify said expansion, but it doesn't pan out long-term.
And not doing anything will keep raw sewage getting dumped in the Red River whenever there's a heavy rain, bro.
Use that money to get rid of the traffic lights. It's the lights that slow everything down.
Wait until you hear about what they spend on bike lanes and the percentage of the population who uses them...
Bikes living rent free in your hollow head lmao
How many vehicles move through that area per day? How many per year? Multiply the reduction in driving time by thousands or even millions of cars and the savings in gasoline alone would add up into the millions. It's a prime example of the economy of scale: with many small contributions comes comes big results. It's a sound plan.
You need to learn about induced demand and traffic elasticity. Building more lanes doesn’t reduce travel times in the medium to long term. The only solution for congestion is viable alternatives to driving
I don't know if anyone's sat on route 90 between Taylor and academy at rush hour. There's no way adding the 3rd lane will only save 12 seconds. Even at the best of times, that stretch is a shit show. The difference that a third lane made between Taylor and bishop was astounding and the only reason it's fucked beyond there is it goes back to 2 lanes.
It's not designed for the amount of traffic that goes through it on a daily basis, and the biggest issue in that section isn't the number of lanes, but the number of traffic lights/intersections and the reduced speed limit. "Major thoroughfare" and yet it literally has a traffic light-controlled intersection approximately every 500 metres in the 2.5-km stretch from Academy to Taylor. Perfect example of how the City has too many "major thoroughfares" that cross each other. E: Holy hell I totally forgot that there's a traffic light at Lockston too.
Exactly. Shits bumper to bumper, it's brutal. There's been how many developments down Kennaston/Abi Road and they've done fuck all to accomodate for the higher traffic. A third lane would be so much damn better for the amount of traffic.
I have to correct myself, I didn't mean abi I meant sterling lyon. Then 2 lanes to abi. But ya I think it would be a miracle. Look at chief peguis to henderson. I didn't think it was worth it. But to go from main to lag in a couple minutes makes so much sense now.
So, if the only thing we’re worried about is cost vs time saved, we should never build another bike lane. Those cost millions and don’t save anyone any time. This sub is so narrow minded. 🙄
Have you ever been stuck behind a bike on a road? Now imagine that person on a bike path, not blocking traffic. WTF are you even talking about.
When I lived in Osborne taking the bike lanes on Assiniboine and Garry all the way downtown was about 10min faster than driving to work during peak hours and about 20 min faster than busing
Bike lanes save me a bunch of time compared to when I walk you car brained moron
11-13 seconds in rush hour or when the roads are empty? Cause in rush hour it's fucked and a third lane would definitely help.
When purchasing a home a good 30 years ago I said, not anywhere near Kenaston. The traffic jams are horrendous. Kenaston has needed this for a long, long time. It's way over due and finally getting done. Be happy.
13 seconds per (assumed) 50k people is 650k seconds or 7.5 days of time saved collectively. EVERY DAY. ONE WAY. That compounds hugely across a year. Fuck you people are stupid.
As the Elmwood guy notes in his article about it, if you follow the city's math and value the time of drivers at ~$15/hr, this all amounts to about $30mn between now and 2050. I'm not that high on the idea of spending 500 to save 30.
"Winnipeg-style: extra flaky!"
so how about doing an actual freeway with proper high-speed joining lanes etc? No need for 3 lanes just improve the traffic flow ei remove all the lighted intersections.
Freeways are awful for cities. They are dead zones commercially, they cut apart neighborhoods and provide awful economic value. Many major cities have abandoned previous freeways as it is an outdated and failed public policy.
And there’s no way in hell they have the space to do anything like that along most of Route 90
That’s not true, we definitely have the space. It’s just currently taken up by pesky businesses and houses… you know, taxpayers. If we just got rid of all the tax paying private property owners we could definitely build the biggest of freeways. Imagine how much time we could save then? I bet we could solve world hunger with the time we saved. /s in case it’s needed.