Kenaston and St. James Bridge Reconstruction

The St. James Bridge is getting to the time where maintenance every year will not cut it. Much like the Arlington Bridge, it might reach a time where one if not both of the spans will be closed. Crumbling infrastructures closed the Civic Parkade and made the Public Safety Building a danger. It is a pattern with the city that something becomes completely broken and then it takes years to do something about.

The changes to the St. James Bridge alone are massive and will be in the tens of millions and likely take at least two or more years to do. It is difficult to see what the city has in mind, especially around Portage Avenue and the fire department structure. Some other work around the Viscount Gort and along Portage is a bit of a mystery as well.

As the St. James Bridge proceeds south into River Heights and Tuxedo, it actually curves west and hits a stretch where the speed drops to 50 kms. It is a narrow stretch right off the bridge and has houses on either side. A few have been bought by the city and removed but there many others that the plan calls for their removal. It appears all access roads to Kenaston from Academy to Willow will only be service roads with no turns at Route 90.

If this was the only work done for the bridge and the approaches, it would a huge job. However, the fear is that traffic would bottleneck further down Kenaston and especially as it gets to the more commercial areas further south. The Kapyong development probably has all of the planners nervous. It should. If any street looked in need of a transit corridor, it would be this one. Six lanes of traffic is what is being planned. It will be even wider at intersections further up. Moreover, it doesn't indicate what changes even further south will have to be contemplated.

There is an indication of what the cost benefit analysis shows for the road and it is pretty thin soup. It will be about only a few minutes in saved time but at $730 million plus that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Moreover, the mayor says there is the Peguis extension that he says is also a priority. Both projects could cost $2 billion. It is hard to imagine where the money is going to come from. The federal government already commits money to the municipalities for infrastructure. The province has their own priorities which might not go to roads that cannot be sustained by the city after.

The city already spends about $100,000 a year to maintain Kenaston/Route 90. Fewer large trucks use it now that the Tuxedo Yards is no longer a container port. It is a busy stretch of road and can get bottlenecked. A big concern is that if the road is expanded that it encourages huge development just outside the perimeter. That is no idle concern. One of the last provincial government's objectives was turnpikes on the Perimeter Highway that was to facilitate exurban growth.

Part of the design as Kenaston heads south involves blocking road access except at major intersections like Corydon and Grant. At those intersections, there is considerable widening for turning lanes. Also part of the road will be berms and walls which we see in the Bridgwater section of Route 90. This has led to late night racing in past years since it seems no one is there to stop it.

Kenaston is indeed a mess the money spent might be a case of: if you build it, they will come. In other words, it could bottleneck even more and not get people to use other modes of transportation. There will be buses up and down Kenaston and in one year, the entire system of Transit will be changed. The goal is not to have to wait longer than four or five minutes for a bus. It is sure to be confusing at first and may require some adjustments along the way. However, the goal should be to increase density of residents along these routes. In other cities, use of a car is less of a need because of the consistency and safety of public transit. 

Most other cities, including American ones, are establishing light right, subways, trains and busy routes as it increasingly looks like roads cannot be expanded any further. Winnipeg has managed just one route for the Southwest Transit Corridor. The rest will probably come decades later. That's how slow the process is. It will be likely the federal government will wonder why huge amounts will be spent on roads in Winnipeg whereas Transit is low priority. 

Even before Kenaston is worked on, the First Nations will be working on the re-development of the now empty Kapyong site. It remains to be seen whether they leave one lane on either side open for road expansion while they build their hotel and conference centre. At some point road access will have to be considered. But will it be on a standard two lane road with some turning lanes. Once the development is built out to curb-side, the chance of having six lanes quickly fades.

As mentioned, there is no budget for anything to do with Kenaston or the St. James Bridge. The city will literally go cup in hand to the province and the feds and might come up empty. If they try to bear the costs themselves, they might not be able to afford anything after including repairing other falling bridges. As long as bridges like Arlington are permanently closed, it is hard to imagine not thinking about the costs of new infrastructure. 

The city is asking for a new Core Area Initiative from three levels of government for downtown but with all the requests for money being asked for by mayor and council, they seem to think tens of billions will flow to various projects. Big road projects are likely down on the list with the federal government. Even a new Conservative government next year is unlikely to be forking over billions to every municipal government with huge shopping lists. It seems unlikely the new NDP provincial government will be not so keen on two highways getting huge provincial funds either.

The only way of the above project gets money is if it is part of a public transportation component. Having a few bus stops doesn't seem to cut it. As Kapyong ramps up, the options on adding lanes might end. It may start to create some desperation at City Hall as buildings go up at the new development. However, with no budget and no fairy godmother, it is hard to see where they get the money for this.