Finding a better option than bigger roads

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

When facing complex problems, governments often reach for the simplest and most familiar solutions. In Winnipeg, that tendency shows up in how we plan for growth of our transportation network.

For decades, our go-to transportation investment has been roads for personal vehicles. Before disinvestment in public transit, Winnipeg had a robust, electrified system. Neighbourhoods like mine in South Osborne once saw streetcars gliding along the high street every few minutes. An everyday convenience that feels unimaginable today. Swoon!

Many civic leaders appear unable to imagine growth without increasing car dependence. The proposed widening of Route 90 is the clearest example. No one disputes that Kenaston from Academy to Taylor and the St. James Bridge needs major repair.

Less known is that the city froze its maintenance budget for this stretch of Kenaston from 1993 to 2023. That has had clear consequences. It is strange that a corridor now labelled as “critical” was allowed to suffer such neglect.

I digress. This project isn’t just a repair. Tacked on to the budget is a plan to take on significant new public debt to add lanes to Kenaston, reconfigure and add a new span to the St. James Bridge, and dramatically expand the intersections at Grant, Corydon and Academy.

Does this portion of Route 90 experience congestion? Of course.

But does it get significantly more congested than other parts of Route 90 or Henderson, Pembina, St. Mary’s, (insert your local road here)? Nope. And traffic counts show that volumes over the busiest stretch — the St. James Bridge — are roughly the same as they were 30 years ago. On top of that, truck traffic on Route 90 is only about four per cent of the total. Most travel is by personal vehicles, the vast majority being single occupant.

We must move people and goods efficiently, not just on Route 90 but everywhere. With this project, the city argues that adding road capacity is worth increasing the project cost for two main reasons: maintaining traffic flow during construction plus supporting trade and development, especially at Seasons of Tuxedo and Naawi-Oodena.

The construction challenge is real, but hardly unique. Cities across North America routinely manage major reconstruction projects without permanently widening the roadway afterwards. Had this project been properly studied, councillors would today be reviewing other viable options and their respective returns on investment. Instead, no serious studies of transportation demand management strategies, that would be less costly and potentially more effective, were undertaken.

Councillors are being warned of “traffic chaos” and an “Arlington Bridge scenario” if they don’t approve this widening. This is ironic given that 41 per cent of the project’s stated benefits come from travel-time savings only during construction. Nearly half of the benefits disappear after just two years.

The second issue, car-oriented development, is something we have to solve, not just in southwest Winnipeg, but in all areas. We need to add affordable housing everywhere to meet current and future demand. But where and how we build it is of equal importance.

We can no longer afford to make the personal vehicle the default mode of choice in new developments. We need to build fast-and-frequent transit as the centrepiece, with communities that make it easy for kids to walk to school and seniors to walk to appointments and services. Naawi-Oodena’s own master-plan identifies the current and proposed infrastructure on Route 90 as a barrier to the walkable development envisioned. The mayor has said, in regards to induced demand, that in the case of Route 90, “demand isn’t being induced, it’s inevitable.” Building new development with no way to get in or out without a personal vehicle is, you guessed it: induced demand.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

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Rather than endlessly adding more lanes, the city needs to explore the full toolkit of transportation demand management measures used elsewhere to reduce congestion. How do we solve congestion on Route 90 as well as on other major regional streets in Winnipeg? Reduce the number of people who drive alone, especially at peak periods.

The city has plans and strategies, already approved and sitting on shelves at City Hall, that point the way forward. And there are proven carrot-and-stick measures implemented in other cities like ours that help manage congestion without exploding long-term debt.

Winnipeg already has more kilometres of roadway per resident than many comparable cities in Canada, and far more than we can afford to maintain. The multi-billion dollar civic infrastructure deficit we are leaving to future generations is staggering.

We owe it to those who come after us to live within our means by taking better care of our existing infrastructure and using it more efficiently. That will ensure that future Winnipeggers inherit a city that is more affordable, healthier and sustainable than it is today.

Mel Marginet is a sustainable transportation specialist at Green Action Centre and the publisher at Great Plains Press, which publishes The City Project. She contributed to Route 90 Expansion: Balancing on a House of Cards, which can be found at anatomyofapothole.ca