TRUWinnipeg.org

EDMONTON — City councillors have confirmed the NAIT line is the first priority for LRT construction, followed by routes approved in December to the west and southeast.


Mayor Stephen Mandel said the unanimous vote Wednesday will show the province Edmonton wants to expand the system in one big push, a move he thinks will provide economies of scale and attract riders from across the city.

“Everybody shares (the cost) of this, so it’s only fair that everybody gets a line to their area,” he said.

“Having people on those lines creates a modern, innovative city … Finally, Edmonton can have an LRT system that you can go somewhere, not just south to northeast.”

But the city still needs to come up with about $3 billion to complete its vision. There are hopes for money under the Alberta Green Trip transit program, which slashed spending last year, and a private-public partnership is one option being studied for the routes to the west and Mill Woods.

The city also has plans to expand service one day to Sherwood Park, St. Albert, Gorman and Heritage Valley.

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Don’t try this in Chicago.

The dreaded surface lots in the background are about 70% full, so most of these were shot during weekday business hours.

The problem here is that all parking downtown is 2h restricted, forcing you into a private lot if you want to drive to work, and guaranteeing fines for overnight guests of downtown residents, or anyone who leaves a car behind and wisely enjoys a taxi home after a night of heavy entertainment.

Given this obvious surplus of metered and unmetered 2h limited parking, downtown would become more livable if we transformed many of the pay and free 2h zones into unrestricted spaces.

For a motorist, there are different classes, one less desirable than the next, of parking space. In Manhattan, a weekday daytime restriction will do during an evening or weekend, but the most coveted spot is the one unrestricted (save for two ninety-minute weekly street cleanings). Unrestricted parking spaces comprise the majority of street parking in Manhattan. Yet any given space at any given time is almost sure to be occupied; finding one after a patient search brings a moment of elation.

In Winnipeg, no such patience required. You can always find a spot but even if you’re paying you can’t be staying more than two hours—or it’ll be a fine. Meanwhile, most unmetered streets close to downtown (such as Langside, Spence, Elgin, and Pacific) posting a 2h limit are near-empty while the cars that could fill them occupy nearby surface pay lots. This is absurd.

TRU Winnipeg feels it’s imperative to get as many cars as possible off of downtown real estate—which should become construction sites and mixed commercial-residential buildings—and onto public streets. Parking policy must be tweaked to create more unrestricted parking downtown along lesser, peripheral streets currently empty under the 2h limit. Every additional car parked on the street is one that didn’t have to go into a private lot. Metered parking and 2h restrictions are useful for creating turnover when demand threatens shortages; but these pictures prove that on Winnipeg’s downtown streets parking is nothing near a shortage situation. Through its blanket two-hour limit throughout the downtown, the City of Winnipeg is in effect creating an artificial demand for daytime parking on private lots. It’s a scam that is fleecing not only our pockets but our built environment.

Google Street View proves that Winnipeggers so often exaggerate the difficulty of parking downtown, and that there is an oversupply of 2h restricted parking accompanied by the non-existence of any unrestricted, longer-term parking—a service that the city has eliminated and effectively handed over to private operators of surface lots and parking garages. A few lot owners profit, and the whole city suffers.

Robert Galston, Winnipeg Free Press

Headed south down Waterfront Drive on an unseasonably warm November afternoon, the row of new condo buildings lining the winding roadway met my eye.

Architecturally, none of these buildings are notable for anything but average attempts at cartoonish “heritage” design, but taken together, perhaps with eyes squinted a little bit, they gave a definitive form to a neighbourhood that does not fade out as it approaches the Red River, but is built up right to its edge.

Behind Waterfront Drive could be seen the massing of century-old warehouses and offices of the Exchange District east of Main, and still beyond them, the quartet of post-war skyscrapers that stand at the four corners of Portage and Main.

From this view, one gets the impression that while Winnipeg is not a rich city of highrises and glass, it is, in its modesty and pragmatism, a low-rise but compact and urban city.

But to look closer, down the avenues that make up the East Exchange, one sees a neighbourhood threatened by a gradually hollowing destruction, and that the new urbanity of Waterfront Drive could end up being only a false front.

Sport Manitoba is undergoing redevelopment of the Smart Bag Company building on the corner of Pacific and Lily Street. Actually two separate buildings, the larger section built in 1913 is being renovated for office use, while the oldest section, dating back to 1884, will be demolished for a parkade, possibly with a gymnasium built on the top level.

On Lombard Avenue, the Grain Exchange Annex built in 1920 has a date with the wrecking ball in order to create a bigger loading dock. On a vacant lot next door, another parkade is planned.

In the vicinity of James Avenue, city planners are looking at the construction of a parkade for 450 cars, to be operated by the Winnipeg Parking Authority.

That planners would exert any energy in finding the best place for the publicly owned parking authority to build a massive parkade, is outdated and absurd. More than 50 years of destruction in the name of parking has been a driving force in creating such a problematic downtown. Winnipeg planners should be working to counter the effects of suburbanization, not to amplify them.

Not only counter-productive, a wave of new parkades in the East Exchange is redundant. Ostensibly planned in response to new residences, every residential unit on Waterfront and elsewhere in the East Exchange already has at least one (usually two) underground parking spots available on-site. The Market Avenue theatres do not need new facilities either, since the Civic Centre parkade and curb-side spots easily meet the demand on show nights.

“The dead storage of motor vehicles within the downtown area adds nothing to the attractiveness of its appearance, and detracts from its overall business utility.” —Norman D. Wilson

Still, everyone from Mayor Sam Katz to the anonymous armchair urbanists that populate the city’s web forums cheer for more parkades. Not only because they are visually preferable to the many surface parking lots downtown, but because the construction of the former supposedly cancels the existence of the latter.

If a five-level parkade is built, the theory goes, five surrounding surface parking lots will be eliminated by being built upon by a mixed-use development (that was lured to the area by the great parking facilities). Sounds nice, but how has it worked in downtown Winnipeg so far?

In recent decades, the East Exchange has been seen as downtown’s leading potentially desirable residential neighbourhood. Yet so little of what is being planned and developed there has any sense of actual livability. No one but car-bound misanthropes would want to live in a neighbourhood where parkades are a dominant feature of the landscape, no matter how gussied up in heritage motifs they are.

In 1959, Toronto civil engineer Norman D. Wilson wrote in a report on transit in Winnipeg, that “(t)he dead storage of motor vehicles within the downtown area adds nothing to the attractiveness of its appearance, and detracts from its overall business utility.”

If storing vehicles for office employees and theatre-goers, on an increasingly over-saturated supply of parkades, is a “fact of life” in the East Exchange, then Winnipeg should drop the pretence of wanting a strong residential population and busy sidewalks there.

It should instead publicly acknowledge that sparse and discontinuous streetscapes, inefficient land uses, fewer heritage buildings, and a whole lot more dullness continues to be what is wanted for the East Exchange District. We’re already on our way toward that end.

Robert Galston is a Winnipeg writer and Point Douglas resident.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 27, 2009 A15

Commercial viability is more desirable than empty lots

Robert Galston, University of Winnipeg Uniter

A small commercial building is under construction at a vacant corner of Sherbrook Street and Westminster Avenue. The main tenant of the building will be a Subway restaurant. Like Stella’s Bakery next door, this small development has been regarded as an attempt to breathe new life into Sherbrook south of Broadway, which some have speculated could become another Corydon Avenue.

This claim is tossed around rather liberally in Winnipeg, but it is not without some merit.

Like Corydon, this strip of Sherbrook was built up early in the last century along a streetcar line; first with houses, later with stores (sometimes added to the front of houses) and small apartment blocks. Today, both are straddled by relatively dense neighbourhoods. For Sherbrook, there is Wolseley to the west and Wolseley’s poorer, older cousin West Broadway to the east.

Together, they house many students, young professionals and aging members of the Volvo-set looking for the street-cred that Crescentwood doesn’t provide.

The key difference between the two streets, why one thrived while the other did not, is traffic engineering.

If Corydon were to have been converted to a one-way street, complete with rush-hour parking restrictions and a widened roadway, it would be Sherbrook.

With more done to make Sherbrook an enjoyable place to walk along, and less of an obnoxious funnel to speed south-end commuters through, there would be more pedestrians and businesses, not to mention an increase in the quality of life for the surrounding neighbourhoods.

Still, destructive traffic engineering does not seem to be the biggest concern amongst local residents. One commenter on my blog recently pointed out that Subway will be the first chain store on the corner of Westminster and Sherbrook, a fact that is “getting everyone down.” While I don’t want to depress moods further, isn’t the Salvation Army thrift store across the street a continent-wide chain? Possibly, but maybe not the type Naomi Klein warned you about.

Starbucks: would you rather have a parking lot?

What gets me down is seeing what many of Winnipeg’s once viable commercial streets have become after years of abandonment. Ellice and Sargent struggle, Provencher snoozes on its potential, and North Main and Selkirk Avenue have practically ceased to exist.

A Subway opening up on Sherbrook is good news. While Mom’s Deli or Pop’s Hardware often add colour to a neighbourhood where chain stores simply add sameness, most neighbourhood strips in Winnipeg’s centre don’t have the luxury of choosing between the two. Any meaningful commercial establishment that wants to open up is something of a small victory against urban malignancy.

Small commercial development is not a zero-sum game. Chain stores and independents feed off each other. They add concentration and choice to customers, which is better for everyone. The busiest Fyxx coffee outlet happens to be the one right by a Starbucks at Broadway and Donald.

This success is possible only if new stores are built up to the sidewalk, with windows and entrances oriented towards them. After decline, the greatest threat to Winnipeg’s traditional commercial streets is suburbanization.

Setting a building back for parking or shrubbery, or without an entrance from the sidewalk, detracts from the neighbourhood’s aesthetics and commercial viability. One need only head up Sherbrook to Portage to see the parking lot wasteland that was allowed to sprout up there. The new building at Westminster does not appear to follow any elements of this destructively car-oriented mindset.

Subway’s logo lit up at night might pollute the view for those riding their cool bikes up Westminster (the way a “for lease” or “ACME Demolition Co.” sign somehow would not), but don’t let it get you down: It’s only a traditional commercial main street surviving in the age of international chains.

Robert Galston, Winnipeg Free Press

It’s easy to get excited about the plans Red River College has for the Union Bank tower on Main Street. Built in 1904, it is a true example the early skyscrapers, not only by virtue of its height, but by its adaptation of classical orders to a tall building. Reaching 11 storeys from ground through the wonder of steel, it looks down on Main from a sharp bend in what had been, just a generation before, a muddy trail connecting two forts along the Red River.

When the tower became vacant in 1992, I was 10 years old, and I have grown into young adulthood seeing it as a heartbreakingly prominent reminder of Winnipeg’s lost glory. And so, if nothing else, to one day see the lights on in the building at night will have a huge impact on the city’s bruised psyche, sending a message that, for now at least, we no longer let prominent architectural treasures sit empty for years.

As a result of this good news, there is, however, a tendency that must be avoided, and that is to see educational facilities as the new panacea to downtown’s all-too-obvious ills.

Early in 1946, consolidating the University of Manitoba with many of the city’s other small colleges was a major consideration. More than 60 years later, one can easily imagine what downtown would be like under this different course of events: some 40,000 full-time students on any given day; the brick mansions of Kennedy and Edmonton restored as fraternity houses, department offices, or coffee shops; Broadway sidewalks filled with young and purposeful pedestrians well into the evening. The University of Manitoba would have practically rubbed shoulders with the University of Winnipeg, and downtown Winnipeg would be seen as the centre of a university town, and not simply a sprawling, patchy collection of government office buildings.

Sounds nice, but one need only walk along the south side of Ellice by the University of Winnipeg’s campus, to see that just because thousands of students use a place, does not mean it will have a good effect on the surroundings. Were the University of Manitoba to build a campus downtown with the same regard for urban form and function other urban universities did in the 1960s and 1970s (an era long on good intentions and short on good results), it would be another great void that office schemes like the Trizec complex were destined to become.

Only by understanding the nature of urban environments and how people use them can renewal projects lend themselves to their surroundings. Without that, the same old mega-projects that insulate themselves from the streets (which became more languishingly dull by their presence) are allowed to rise again and again. It must be learned why some places are used and loved, and why others are avoided and uncared for.

Red River College seemed to understand this when it took on a complex and expensive project on Princess Street. With an attention to detail and aesthetics unprecedented in downtown renewal projects, they rebuilt a block of Victorian commercial buildings as a dynamic little campus that has added life to the surrounding Exchange District.

From the looks of it, the plans for the Union Bank tower seem to carry on in the same spirit. Functionally, it will be mixed, with residences above, institutional and commercial uses on the ground floor. Its form is interesting and its scale inviting.

How Red River College found success on Princess Street, and how they seem poised to on Main, must be taken into consideration in future projects, and cannot simply be equated to their general use as education centres. Renewal is not measured in quantitative terms, and unless Winnipeg is interested in playing endgames downtown for another half-century, it must pay attention to the way spaces look, feel and function.

Robert Galston is a Winnipeg writer and Point Douglas resident.

Getting To And From

Justine Kim, yourmoney.ca

In urban areas, everything is quite compact, so you can easily travel from place to place by walking or accessing public transit. Taking the bus or subway can be quite cheap. The cost of one bus fare in many Canadian cities can range between two to three dollars. If you are a frequenter of the transit system, you can buy weekly or monthly passes and enjoy unlimited travel to save money. For those living in suburban areas, there may be many hidden costs in transportation that you may not have considered.

A study of 27 American metropolitan areas by the Centre for Housing Policy found that the cost of commuting cancels any savings on lower-priced suburban homes. Those who own cars know the pain of the skyrocketing gas prices experienced by many Canadian cities. Workers that have to drive into the city for their day jobs can shell out immense amounts of gas money, not to mention the insane prices for parking downtown.

For those that do not have access to a car, getting around in the suburbs can be quite a challenge. If a transit system does exist, it may not be as well serviced as one in an urban area. Routes may be limited and service infrequent. You may have to resort to taking a taxi and that can hit your wallet hard.

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“At the heart of the Parking Authority is a Passion for Parking – an entrepreneurial spirit that values customer service excellence, and the drive to develop public parking services in new, innovative ways.” *

“Hughes claims the paystations near his store have been missing the two-hour free parking notices for roughly a year. ‘Give me the specs, I’ll get them printed and I’ll get the staff to put them up. It’s a small thing. They’re not waiting for a part from Siberia,’ he said.” *

Power-point buzzwords notwithstanding, this instance effectively demonstrates how the free market works better at achieving a public good most efficiently (ie, in less than a year) than the public bodies charged with doing so.

Aqua Books, which was dragged to the depths of red tape hell by the City when they attempted to open up a bookstore and restaurant in a vacant building on Garry Street (the nerve!), now operates as the biggest, best, most organized used bookstore in the city. Placing stickers on parking metres on Garry Street in front of their store to inform their customers that parking is free on weekends, Aqua Books raised the ire of the Winnipeg Parking Authority.

And while WPA boss David Hill doesn’t see forgetting to let motorists know about free weekend parking as a big deal, what is a big deal is someone else doing it for them. Such a big deal, that it warranted Aqua Books recieving allegations of vandalism and bullying from WPA officials.

Meanwhile, Aqua’s ostensible allies, the organization they pay tribute money to as a member of the Downtown Business Improvement Zone, shrugged off the issue of a business not waiting around for an ineptly useless “Authority” to improve their business conditions. “This sounds like just a heated discussion, more than anything… I’d hate to see any of my BIZ members charged with doing anything like that. Cooler heads will prevail,” offered BIZ Director Stefano Grande to the Free Press. Go get ‘em, tiger.

Anyway, under such regulations, downtown Winnipeg has become inhospitable both to the urban resident and the occassional visitor. For the resident, it is wiser to make a weekly commute to a regional shopping centre for errands. Or simply move to Fort Rouge, where one can enjoy an urban life free from all the pointless regulations. For the visitor, the byzantine traffic and parking regulations are too hostile to even bother comprehending. Has anyone ever attempted to park on Donald Street near Graham Avenue (say, to quickly pop in at their local library branch)? One could finish off War and Peace quicker than they could figure out the ridiculous myriad of on-street parking signs. And so, public organizations end up working for people just like themselves: suburbanites who commute by car Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 4:30.

***
By far, the quickest, most inexpensive and effective way to make downtown a more attractive place for people and money, is to completely de-regulate on-street parking to metred parking across the board (save for loading zones), do away with rush hour parking restrictions, and eliminate one-way traffic on nearly every downtown street. Get governments and public organizations out of the business of parking entirely. The Winnipeg Parking Authority should be dissolved. After all, they have been seeking to “create world class parking operation for a world class city” since 1956: how has downtown Winnipeg fared since then?

Fellow TRUWinnipegger Rob Galston has a blog post about design of a new building for Smith Carter Architects at 1600  Buffalo Pl. in Fort Garry.

He raises a point, in sarcasm, about the ‘94 Kenaston Express’ bus route. It’s not really an Express anyway, but I’ll leave that part of it alone.

When I first read that I thought — HEY! That’s not right. Route 94 is the Point Road feeder bus. Has been called that for decades.

Since 1997 WT route planners eliminated route names on the suburban routes.

So what was once the 97 Kenaston (feeder) route was now just known just by its route number, which doesn’t inform the passenger at all about where that particular bus goes.

The earliler this decade the 97 route combined with the 95 Morley route and the route name was eliminated, so you don’t know where this bus goes.

And some joker who couldn’t cross the street from PanAm Pool got WT to put a stop right in front of the Pool. If they are able-bodied enough to swim they should be just as able bodied to walk to the bus stop on Cambridge, a few feet away. Eliminate the PanAm Pool Stop #61083! No one uses it. I’ve never seen anyone get on or off at that stop. For the convenience of the rest of us, take it away!

But WT, if you’re gonna go back to route naming for suburban feeders, at least go back to something that makes sense. Name it something that makes sense to you. Makes sense to us.

I suggest 94 McGillivray, and splitting the 95 to re-create the two separate feeder bus routes — the 95 Morley and the 97 Kenaston.

Also, just added another plug-in to our blogging software that randomly displays a blog post from our website.

The content on our website has grown over the past 5 years and the time has come to make it easier for you, our readers, to find the individual articles.

To use this feature, simply click on the box at the end of the blog post that says “Liked this article? Read another similar article.”

Now you can more easily print posts from TRUWinnipeg.org’s blog.

First select the blog post you want to print, and then select the printer icon at the top of the post and the software will create a new printer friendly page, on the fly.

The plug-in is called WP-PRINT.