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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

City set to spend $31M on last piece of BRT line

By: Bartley Kives

Posted: 07/10/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

As Mayor Sam Katz pushes Winnipeg toward light-rail transit, the city is about to spend almost $31 million to complete the last major piece of its first bus rapid transit line.

The city is poised to award PCL Constructors a $30.8-million contract to build a bridge over Osborne Street - with an enclosed transit station - at the south end of Confusion Corner, according to a report that comes before council's public works committee on Tuesday.

The bridge will allow buses to avoid Confusion Corner. The other major structure along the first phase of the Southwest Rapid Transit Corridor is a tunnel below CN's Fort Rouge Yards. The 3.6-kilometre, $138-million Phase One is slated to open in late 2011.

The fate of a six-kilometre extension to the University of Manitoba is in limbo while Katz and the Selinger government squabble over the price tag, the source of the money and the mode of transportation.

BFI lands more work

WINNIPEG is poised to award BFI Canada another garbage-collection contract, this time from apartments and small businesses in the east side of the city.

Council's public works committee will vote Tuesday to award BFI a seven-year, $3.8-million contract. BFI beat out four other waste-management companies by presenting the lowest bid.

BFI already does approximately $10.6 million of business with the city every year.

Up creek, without bridge

THE City of Winnipeg's aborted effort to build a new bike-and-pedestrian bridge over Omand's Creek cost taxpayers $66,350, according to a city report.

The city planned to build a $1-million bridge over the creek at Omand Park to replace a low-lying structure that winds up underwater during floods. The bridge would have been funded by all three levels of government as part of a city-wide active transportation upgrade.

But Wolseley residents expressed strong opposition to the structure at a public meeting, complaining it would harm a toboggan run.

Engineering, consulting and other costs stemming from the aborted project totalled $66,350, leaving almost $267,000 for the city to spend on some other area project, either with or without contributions from Ottawa and Manitoba.

Pagtakhan registers

POINT Douglas Coun. Mike Pagtakhan is the 11th and likely final incumbent member of council to register to run in this fall's election.

Pagtakhan signed up at the city clerk's office on Friday to seek a third term in office. So far, no one else has registered to run in Point Douglas.

Registration is open until September. The civic election takes place Oct. 27.

In June, Pagtakhan lost a Liberal nomination contest for the federal riding of Winnipeg North to Inkster MLA Kevin Lamoureux.

City has gas trouble

A plan to burn off methane at the Brady Road Landfill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and possibly produce energy is behind schedule "due to the complexities involved" in awarding a contract, city solid waste managers write in another report heading to the public works committee.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 10, 2010 B3

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