My prompt today was simply one word - Construction
A thought occurred to me while driving through yet another construction area in the city yesterday. The thought I had is that this city doesn’t seem to have a single clue when it comes to road planning. Some, in fact many decisions make me question the sanity or at the least the basic commonsense of a few of our city officials.
Now the south-west area of the city has developed a staggering amount over the past decade so it has to be expected that some things would have to be upgraded and changed however it seems some areas never seem to get done despite constant construction.One particular area is the 6 year old Sterling Lion Parkway. Since its completion it has been constantly changing never without barricades and construction crews somewhere along its length. New driving and merging lanes, boulevards and shoulders have been added and it is now once again (still?) under construction to add access roads and another intersection.
Now to ask the city why it’s under constant construction they would likely attribute it to the IKEA and shopping centre which is being built. The plans for these new constructs was around when the original roadway was built so why then was the roadway not built to accommodate these in the first place?
It just seems to make sense to prepare for future issues before they happen. Take the new Waverly west subdivision which has been in the works on and off for many years. The city had to have known that this would cause a significant congestion problem yet they waited until it actually happened to start doing something about it.
The city “updated” Waverly St. by taking a straight line from point a to point b adding in some curves, a hairpin turn and no less than 4 speed limit changes in a section only a few kilometers long. How someone at some point thought that this of all things would help traffic flow is beyond me.
Admittedly Waverly doesn’t really have traffic problems as it is now so painful to navigate no one wants to use the street but it has caused increased problems in adjacent areas that were already congested to begin with. So now an entirely new road is in the plans for construction mimicking what Waverly once was, just a few kilometers further west.
I could go on, and on projects that take decades to implement instead of years, the sorry state of most residential streets, teeth jarring bone rattling potholes, rapid transit (projected completion in 2031, seriously) and countless other follies many of which could have been avoided with a little more thought put into plans.
I’m sure every city has roadway and traffic issues and that Winnipeg is not alone in this but sometimes you need to stop and shake your head at the sheer idiocy of it all.
