‘Steady as it goes’ for Eastern Corridor planning

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This article was published 30/11/2017 (2923 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg held a second round of public workshops on the rapid transit eastern corridor study this past week.

David Patman, city project manager, explained that the workshops focused on project evaluation criteria and some preliminary mapping exercises to determine a number of viable routes for the transit corridor.

“The consultants and other experts at the city have put together what we think the evaluation criteria should be, so now we’re going to the public to see if they support that, or if we need to tweak the rankings,” Patman said at a workshop at Chalmers Community Centre (480 Chalmers Ave.) on Nov. 28.

The City identified six criteria for evaluating the eastern corridor plan: connectivity, performance, city building, cost, social equity, and environmental impacts.

“We did an internal analysis where we compared all these criteria against each other,” Patman said. “Within each of those categories have sub-categories.”

The workshops also featured a mapping exercise where different routes for the transit corridor could be laid out. The proposed corridor could begin near the new Transcona Library (1 Transcona Blvd.) and connect to downtown Winnipeg. Currently, the City is considering a wide range of route options, which could see the corridor wind through East Kildonan, Elmwood, North Point Douglas, and/or St. Boniface.

Members of the public who attended the sessions were encouraged to weigh in on criteria and route priorities.

“We’re still at a general sense of where the corridor might go,” Patman said. “If the public thinks we’re making a bad decision, we want to hear from them about that. Now is the time to tweak.”

Gary Campbell, a resident of Valley Gardens, attended the Chalmers Community Centre workshop to learn more about the project and contribute his two-cents.

“This gives you an idea of what they’re looking at,” Campbell said. “It’s nice, how they’re doing it, rather than having their decisions rammed down your throat.”

At this point in the project, Patman said the City is exploring a number of route options, including diamond lanes or following established rail lines.

“We want to explore those options, and not assume that one is better than the other,” he said.

Campbell said he favours a route that follows the rail lines.

“You could even do something along the Greenway there, on Gateway,” he suggested.

Leading up to the six workshops, which were held in Elmwood, Transcona, St. Boniface, and downtown, the City also held a series of pop-up info booths at commuter hubs downtown, at Kildonan Place and the St. Boniface Library.

The City held its first round of workshops on the eastern corridor back in May 2017, which 170 people attended in person, while another 776 contributed feedback online.

In the late winter or early spring of 2018, a third round of workshops will take place, at which point the City hopes to roll out a “shortlist” of route options. The planning stage is expected to be complete in the fall of 2018.

“We want to ramp it up as we go, so nobody can say they hadn’t heard about the project,” Patman said. “It’s taking a long time to do this project, because we’re trying to be thorough, to make sure public engagement is as correct as can be.”

The public can still take part in this round of consultations online by visiting winnipeg.ca/easterncorridor until Dec. 15.

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