U.S. fans love us, not our streets

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/06/2015 (4060 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OUR brothers and sisters to the south of us have had many good things to say about Winnipeg.

They like our food, our beer and our attractions. What they don’t like is the process of trying to get to those venues.

Winnipeg’s crumbling infrastructure isn’t news for the people who live in Manitoba’s capital. But for the hundreds of Americans who are visiting this city for the first time, it’s a bit of a shocker and the construction isn’t leaving the greatest first impression.

“There’s just so much of it going on right now,” said Josh Francis, who lives in Fargo by way of California. “Especially during the (FIFA Women’s) World Cup, it seems like it’s really poorly timed.”

Francis said he’s not surprised by what he sees. Being from Fargo, he said he knows there’s only a short window during late spring to late summer to get roadwork done. The issue for him is that Winnipeg knew for a while it was getting the World Cup.

“It could have been expedited or delayed for the nine days or so we are here for,” Francis said. “It’s been a bit of a hassle with all of the traffic, but I can’t complain about that being from California originally. But a bunch of the people I know who came up from Fargo just aren’t used to it.”

“Four-lane roads are narrowed down to two here for whatever reason,” said Andrea Shuck of Minneapolis. “There’s just no easy way to get through the city.”

Both Shuck and Francis agree Winnipeg could benefit from a main freeway system free of stop lights, much like the I-35 in Minneapolis or the I-5 in Los Angeles.

“Where I’m from in California, there’s major highways and freeways where you can get from one end of a city to the other easily and with no stopping,” Francis said. “Here it seems there is a lot of stop lights. Just getting from our hotel (near the James A. Richardson Airport) to the stadium took us an hour this morning.”

The City of Winnipeg is aware of the conundrums the construction is creating for the travellers who have come to the city. But they are also aware there isn’t much else they can do.

“There’s a stretch of Pembina Highway (between Dalhousie Drive and Kirkbridge Drive) that is crumbling, said St. Norbert Coun. Janice Lukes, who also doubles as the chairwoman of infrastructure renewal and public works.

Because of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, Lukes said there was a lot of thought that went into deciding construction schedules along Pembina Highway, a major artery for Americans.

“On FIFA days we narrow the construction lanes to just one instead of the two that we normally would use,” she said. “It allows for two lanes going in either direction two hours before and after the games.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca