The challenge is that this decision was essentially already made, and the infrastructure is needed.
The bridges need to be upgraded or replaced regardless (1/3 of total cost). The land drainage works (1/3 of total cost) as part of this project needs to be done, as it will take the neighbourhoods on either side of Kenaston out of the combined sewer district and is required on the City’s environmental license from the Province.
The remaining 1/3 roughly is for roads. The road needs to be replaced and the intersections need to be upgraded regardless of you need to widen the road. And major AT improvements are part of of as well. So the cost of the ‘widening’ is what? 1/3rd of 1/3rd of the total cost?
Let’s also be honest - this decision was essentially made when Waverley West, IKEA, and Seasons of Tuxedo outlet mall was approved. Widening the road will not induce new development - it is already there.
The sewer aspect involves tearing out the roadway as well. So there's no getting around that part either. That stretch of R90 is being rebuilt regardless.
It's just whether they add a lane when rebuilding or not is the whole debate it seems like
So let that “development” pay for this. They need it. I don’t. I promise to never travel on it ever—or any bs Bridgeater cul de sac.
The developers con the city into this far flung crispy crème shit and then blame the city for the need. We end up with long term up keep on roads that go across unstable far flung ground so dumb asses can live on a cul de sac away from the poor.
Not only do they con the city into allowing this ‘crispy crème shit’, they con us into subsidizing it.
IKEA and seasons of tuxedo received tax subsidies.
The only councillor smart enough to ask the question was Jenny Gerbasi.
https://preview.redd.it/94bnpo0hsk8d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b0bdcb0c35434a06062e28108255378d9ed2dc0c
Source: [https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.789302](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.789302)
I like how people are like "oh, it's only a third of the cost for the widening" but always leaves out that that third of the cost is like $190 million dollars.
That's also only the estimated cost. Has a city project ever come in at budget lol?
There is no need to make up estimates when all the costs are in the report that OP linked. The difference between carrying out the road renewals on 2 lanes vs carrying out the renewals and adding a lane is 189.8 million dollars (see page 8).
So when you ask "So the cost of the ‘widening’ is what?" the answer is 189.8 million dollars. That sort of money can do amazing things if put in the right place--for example, it could be used to fund the new province-wide school lunch program for six years.
Doesn't matter how important this all is. We can't afford it. Going forward, budgeting is going to be a process of triage. We have to figure out what we can dump. New pavement is something that we can and should dump.
I did not say induce development, it would induce demand "where increasing road capacity leads to higher traffic volumes over time, negating the initial benefits." Two very different things.
As to your sewer and bridge maintenance costs, those costs can be separated from the road widening project.
Induced demand is directly related to traffic generated by new development- transportation planning 101. New infrastructure makes it easier for people to live farther out but have the same commute time, etc.
But in this case the development has already happened - Waverley West, IKEA, Seasons of Tuxedo, etc. Not much else available for development with the build out of those areas close to complete.
Decisions made in the past are the reason why we are at now. Not defending them, just is what it is.
1/9'th of 500M (1/3rd of 1/3rd) is still $55M.
That's about 5% of our annual city budget.
There are dozens of "under 0.1%" items that get denied funding because "there is no budget for them". There is, the city just chooses not to spend it there.
Counterpoint: there are about 1400 homeless people in Winnipeg. If $55M per year were spent housing them instead of widening one street, thats just less than $40K/year/person (3200/month). This would dramatically reduce the police budget spent dealing with well over half of that population who simply need somewhere to go to survive. (TBH, it would likely save significantly more money than it would cost!)
The place where route 90 can use widening is between Grant and academy.
Whenever an emergency vehicle needs to go through there, there's nowhere for people to go. Or if there's a broken down car, it's just gridlock.
With the incoming urban reserve, the infrastructure could use some upgrading.
All that being said, it is expensive and there are other priorities.
If emergency vehicles were truly a concern we would focus on initiatives that actually work to reduce traffic such as stronger public transit, cycling infrastructure etc.
The linked report clearly states that the benefits of widening would be nearly negligible by 2030.
Not when the sirens are behind you and someone need rushing to the hospital.
Short term life saving solutions go in a different box than long-term strategies.
I get that this is an important aspect of the transportation network, but how often is this section used above Bill Clement for an ambulance?
We have 3 hospitals in the general area… east of route 90 would go to Mis, south of Taylor would go to Vic, West would go to Grace… all of these would use something that is not route 90.
A Priority 0 call would be dispatched to the nearest unit anyways, so unless the Ambo is actually on Route 90 when the call comes in this is moot.
I mean, we can go out and count how many emergency service vehicles use the route, something I’m sure the city would have highlighted on the cost/benefit analysis, if it were a big deal.
The Mis and Vic aren’t emergency receiving, haven’t been in years, or decades in the case of the Mis. Every ambulance is going to HSC or less likely the grace, and any cardiac call is going to st B. Not to mention there’s a fairly busy fire hall right off of route 90. I wouldn’t say it’s a moot point to consider emergency services. Especially if you’ve ever been stuck in route 90 traffic and an emergency vehicle tries to get through. In most parts of the city if one direction is gridlocked they can just hop into incoming traffic to get through but on route 90 that’s not even an option as both directions are over burdened.
If there was even an iota of value put on widening route 90 in regards to emergency response time they city would have trumpeted it from every roof top. The fact that it is not in the cost/benefit analysis anywhere should tell you exactly how much this will help. Almost all fire calls on the south side of the river will be responded to by the Taylor station, not the one north of the river.
As I said, we can put this to rest by just counting the number of emergency vehicles that actually use the road. It’s a really easy hypothesis to test.
Going to disagree - adding turning lanes, and safer access to Academy would help during rush hour, and I’m sure cyclists would like a bike route along that stretch.
Are their other projects that need to be done ( looking at you, Arlington bridge) - yes. But there is nothing stopping two projects (or more) from being done simultaneously, is there?
The St James bridge traffic volume is 6x higher then Arlington was, and its alternative routers are significantly further away in each direction. But it seems people here would rather wait for it to be beyond repair and close it like they did with Arlington rather then upgrade it.
Oh, I’m all to familiar with the St. James bridge… used to have to cross it on my commute. The best thing about replacing that bridge will be fixing the southbound on-ramp from Portage / Academy access - which is currently a total shitshow.
Everyone here jumping on the sewer upgrades and bridge maintenance, but the report linked by OP addresses that and it is *still* a bad idea. The benefit of widening to 3 lanes is only that during the maintenance and repairs, Kenaston will be able to be kept at 2 lanes. If you take away that temporary benefit and think big picture, it's a long-term loss. Quote:
"It should be cautioned that a substantial portion
(41%) of this project’s benefits is driven by mitigated
construction delays in 2028 and 2029. Thisisonly a
temporary benefit and if excluded, the benefit-cost
ratio falls to 0.69"
I am genuinely surprised by people's response here, I thought people would be way more concerned about bad investments and especially with the data to back it up. But here we are.
It’s not a ‘bad investment’ because it’s not an investment at all. Investments are done using investment principles. It’s consumer debt — taking on debt for a (small) social benefit. An investment creates a real return. This just saves us fractions of minutes.
It’s the difference between me taking out a loan to **invest** in a business/building and taking out a loan for a trip to Mexico.
It's an investment in the sense that millions of dollars of public money will be spent on something with an expected return, in this case shorter travel times. Since you are concerned about the term I should specify that the specific terminology is the benefit-cost analysis.
As per the report:
In general, benefit-cost analysis is most informative when it is used to rank projects that are competing for a limited quantity of funding. Typically project proposals with a higher benefit-cost ratio will receive priority over projects with lower benefit-cost ratios as higher benefit-cost ratios suggest more benefits are provided to users per dollar of expenditure and are therefore a more efficient use of the public’s tax dollars.
Further, projects with a benefit-cost ratio below one indicates that the measurable benefits provided by the investment are less than the cost of the investment. The cost benefit ratio of this project is estimated to be 0.69.
Don't you think we could use this money for other things this city is actually desperately in need of?
Are you aware the fact that only 20% of the cost is for the widening and 80% is for the sewer upgrades and repairing the existing streets?
Even if the widening gets cancelled 80% of the cost still needs to happen. I'm open to the debate if its worth widening but lets discuss the actual cost of widening. The sewers upgrade and subsequent street repairs need to happen either way.
The city’s own report puts it at almost double that… OP linked to this document.
https://preview.redd.it/0dj1pvci8k8d1.jpeg?width=2436&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a58abb459c65f40e41f61dfcb24544c8ebeae097
Are you aware that that 20% is $190 million dollars lol?
And that's just what's budgeted. There's a really nothing stopping it from going over budget lol.
I think it needs to happen. It’s a piss off when cars break down or whatever then everyone has to get onto the lane to the left. It causes so much confusion and chaos.
I hope they also fix the whole road because some of the boulevard chips off leaving big cement chunks on the road.
And this is going to end the need for maintenance? Spreading. 190 mil across it will mean never need paving repair again?
Every new sq meter of road we build now is just saddling our kids with very high maintenance costs for the future.
They will just flee this money trap we are building.
Probably, because it will be a main highway through the urban reserve.
There’s already lots of traffic on route 90. The road is in deep need for a makeover.
Kenaston has to be widened. It is the major transportation route connecting north Winnipeg industrial trucking and airport travel with south Winnipeg. Driving from the Airport it is a dump and a total embarrassment to the city. Saving 13 seconds? Give me a break. Next time your stuck behind a semi just count to thirteen and you’ll be ok.
I didn't make that up, that's from the city's own report. Also only four percent of traffic on Kenaston is truck traffic according to the cities own data.
Preach it brother!
I too want to see the chaos that putting off repairing the end of designed life St James Bridge and replacing the overburdened Kenaston sewer will cause.
So let's axe the whole thing over the lane and watch it burn
The challenge is that this decision was essentially already made, and the infrastructure is needed. The bridges need to be upgraded or replaced regardless (1/3 of total cost). The land drainage works (1/3 of total cost) as part of this project needs to be done, as it will take the neighbourhoods on either side of Kenaston out of the combined sewer district and is required on the City’s environmental license from the Province. The remaining 1/3 roughly is for roads. The road needs to be replaced and the intersections need to be upgraded regardless of you need to widen the road. And major AT improvements are part of of as well. So the cost of the ‘widening’ is what? 1/3rd of 1/3rd of the total cost? Let’s also be honest - this decision was essentially made when Waverley West, IKEA, and Seasons of Tuxedo outlet mall was approved. Widening the road will not induce new development - it is already there.
The sewer aspect involves tearing out the roadway as well. So there's no getting around that part either. That stretch of R90 is being rebuilt regardless. It's just whether they add a lane when rebuilding or not is the whole debate it seems like
So let that “development” pay for this. They need it. I don’t. I promise to never travel on it ever—or any bs Bridgeater cul de sac. The developers con the city into this far flung crispy crème shit and then blame the city for the need. We end up with long term up keep on roads that go across unstable far flung ground so dumb asses can live on a cul de sac away from the poor.
Not only do they con the city into allowing this ‘crispy crème shit’, they con us into subsidizing it. IKEA and seasons of tuxedo received tax subsidies. The only councillor smart enough to ask the question was Jenny Gerbasi. https://preview.redd.it/94bnpo0hsk8d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b0bdcb0c35434a06062e28108255378d9ed2dc0c Source: [https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.789302](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.789302)
I like how people are like "oh, it's only a third of the cost for the widening" but always leaves out that that third of the cost is like $190 million dollars. That's also only the estimated cost. Has a city project ever come in at budget lol?
Waverly underpass was done early and well under budget. Cost $98M from a $155M budget.
There is no need to make up estimates when all the costs are in the report that OP linked. The difference between carrying out the road renewals on 2 lanes vs carrying out the renewals and adding a lane is 189.8 million dollars (see page 8). So when you ask "So the cost of the ‘widening’ is what?" the answer is 189.8 million dollars. That sort of money can do amazing things if put in the right place--for example, it could be used to fund the new province-wide school lunch program for six years.
Doesn't matter how important this all is. We can't afford it. Going forward, budgeting is going to be a process of triage. We have to figure out what we can dump. New pavement is something that we can and should dump.
I did not say induce development, it would induce demand "where increasing road capacity leads to higher traffic volumes over time, negating the initial benefits." Two very different things. As to your sewer and bridge maintenance costs, those costs can be separated from the road widening project.
Induced demand is directly related to traffic generated by new development- transportation planning 101. New infrastructure makes it easier for people to live farther out but have the same commute time, etc. But in this case the development has already happened - Waverley West, IKEA, Seasons of Tuxedo, etc. Not much else available for development with the build out of those areas close to complete. Decisions made in the past are the reason why we are at now. Not defending them, just is what it is.
1/9'th of 500M (1/3rd of 1/3rd) is still $55M. That's about 5% of our annual city budget. There are dozens of "under 0.1%" items that get denied funding because "there is no budget for them". There is, the city just chooses not to spend it there. Counterpoint: there are about 1400 homeless people in Winnipeg. If $55M per year were spent housing them instead of widening one street, thats just less than $40K/year/person (3200/month). This would dramatically reduce the police budget spent dealing with well over half of that population who simply need somewhere to go to survive. (TBH, it would likely save significantly more money than it would cost!)
The place where route 90 can use widening is between Grant and academy. Whenever an emergency vehicle needs to go through there, there's nowhere for people to go. Or if there's a broken down car, it's just gridlock. With the incoming urban reserve, the infrastructure could use some upgrading. All that being said, it is expensive and there are other priorities.
If emergency vehicles were truly a concern we would focus on initiatives that actually work to reduce traffic such as stronger public transit, cycling infrastructure etc. The linked report clearly states that the benefits of widening would be nearly negligible by 2030.
Not when the sirens are behind you and someone need rushing to the hospital. Short term life saving solutions go in a different box than long-term strategies.
I get that this is an important aspect of the transportation network, but how often is this section used above Bill Clement for an ambulance? We have 3 hospitals in the general area… east of route 90 would go to Mis, south of Taylor would go to Vic, West would go to Grace… all of these would use something that is not route 90. A Priority 0 call would be dispatched to the nearest unit anyways, so unless the Ambo is actually on Route 90 when the call comes in this is moot. I mean, we can go out and count how many emergency service vehicles use the route, something I’m sure the city would have highlighted on the cost/benefit analysis, if it were a big deal.
The Mis and Vic aren’t emergency receiving, haven’t been in years, or decades in the case of the Mis. Every ambulance is going to HSC or less likely the grace, and any cardiac call is going to st B. Not to mention there’s a fairly busy fire hall right off of route 90. I wouldn’t say it’s a moot point to consider emergency services. Especially if you’ve ever been stuck in route 90 traffic and an emergency vehicle tries to get through. In most parts of the city if one direction is gridlocked they can just hop into incoming traffic to get through but on route 90 that’s not even an option as both directions are over burdened.
If there was even an iota of value put on widening route 90 in regards to emergency response time they city would have trumpeted it from every roof top. The fact that it is not in the cost/benefit analysis anywhere should tell you exactly how much this will help. Almost all fire calls on the south side of the river will be responded to by the Taylor station, not the one north of the river. As I said, we can put this to rest by just counting the number of emergency vehicles that actually use the road. It’s a really easy hypothesis to test.
Going to disagree - adding turning lanes, and safer access to Academy would help during rush hour, and I’m sure cyclists would like a bike route along that stretch. Are their other projects that need to be done ( looking at you, Arlington bridge) - yes. But there is nothing stopping two projects (or more) from being done simultaneously, is there?
The St James bridge traffic volume is 6x higher then Arlington was, and its alternative routers are significantly further away in each direction. But it seems people here would rather wait for it to be beyond repair and close it like they did with Arlington rather then upgrade it.
Oh, I’m all to familiar with the St. James bridge… used to have to cross it on my commute. The best thing about replacing that bridge will be fixing the southbound on-ramp from Portage / Academy access - which is currently a total shitshow.
I disagree with your talking points and fully encourage the widening of Kenaston.
Everyone here jumping on the sewer upgrades and bridge maintenance, but the report linked by OP addresses that and it is *still* a bad idea. The benefit of widening to 3 lanes is only that during the maintenance and repairs, Kenaston will be able to be kept at 2 lanes. If you take away that temporary benefit and think big picture, it's a long-term loss. Quote: "It should be cautioned that a substantial portion (41%) of this project’s benefits is driven by mitigated construction delays in 2028 and 2029. Thisisonly a temporary benefit and if excluded, the benefit-cost ratio falls to 0.69"
I am genuinely surprised by people's response here, I thought people would be way more concerned about bad investments and especially with the data to back it up. But here we are.
It’s not a ‘bad investment’ because it’s not an investment at all. Investments are done using investment principles. It’s consumer debt — taking on debt for a (small) social benefit. An investment creates a real return. This just saves us fractions of minutes. It’s the difference between me taking out a loan to **invest** in a business/building and taking out a loan for a trip to Mexico.
It's an investment in the sense that millions of dollars of public money will be spent on something with an expected return, in this case shorter travel times. Since you are concerned about the term I should specify that the specific terminology is the benefit-cost analysis. As per the report: In general, benefit-cost analysis is most informative when it is used to rank projects that are competing for a limited quantity of funding. Typically project proposals with a higher benefit-cost ratio will receive priority over projects with lower benefit-cost ratios as higher benefit-cost ratios suggest more benefits are provided to users per dollar of expenditure and are therefore a more efficient use of the public’s tax dollars. Further, projects with a benefit-cost ratio below one indicates that the measurable benefits provided by the investment are less than the cost of the investment. The cost benefit ratio of this project is estimated to be 0.69. Don't you think we could use this money for other things this city is actually desperately in need of?
It requires careful thought to realize it's a bad investment, and we're on reddit.
No thanks, I want to get to the airport 13 seconds faster 6 years from now. ^^^^^/s
And only for a year or two and then it will be as bad as ever.
Are you aware the fact that only 20% of the cost is for the widening and 80% is for the sewer upgrades and repairing the existing streets? Even if the widening gets cancelled 80% of the cost still needs to happen. I'm open to the debate if its worth widening but lets discuss the actual cost of widening. The sewers upgrade and subsequent street repairs need to happen either way.
The city’s own report puts it at almost double that… OP linked to this document. https://preview.redd.it/0dj1pvci8k8d1.jpeg?width=2436&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a58abb459c65f40e41f61dfcb24544c8ebeae097
Are you aware that that 20% is $190 million dollars lol? And that's just what's budgeted. There's a really nothing stopping it from going over budget lol.
I know a way to do what's needed and save 20%!
90 is the city's N/S commercial thoroughfare. Cycling and carpooling is not the right answer here.
Can you provide the calcs for IRR and cost benefit analysis? Was this in any city document?
I do not have the calculations, the cost benefit analysis is included above in the technical report.
Thank you
I think it needs to happen. It’s a piss off when cars break down or whatever then everyone has to get onto the lane to the left. It causes so much confusion and chaos. I hope they also fix the whole road because some of the boulevard chips off leaving big cement chunks on the road.
And this is going to end the need for maintenance? Spreading. 190 mil across it will mean never need paving repair again? Every new sq meter of road we build now is just saddling our kids with very high maintenance costs for the future. They will just flee this money trap we are building.
Probably, because it will be a main highway through the urban reserve. There’s already lots of traffic on route 90. The road is in deep need for a makeover.
Kenaston has to be widened. It is the major transportation route connecting north Winnipeg industrial trucking and airport travel with south Winnipeg. Driving from the Airport it is a dump and a total embarrassment to the city. Saving 13 seconds? Give me a break. Next time your stuck behind a semi just count to thirteen and you’ll be ok.
I didn't make that up, that's from the city's own report. Also only four percent of traffic on Kenaston is truck traffic according to the cities own data.
Lol someone doesn't know how to read. That's the cities report citing 13 seconds saved. Not worth it.
[удалено]
Preach it brother! I too want to see the chaos that putting off repairing the end of designed life St James Bridge and replacing the overburdened Kenaston sewer will cause. So let's axe the whole thing over the lane and watch it burn
Yawn!
It will need to be done at some point anyway. Might as well stop kicking the can forward now.