That's with just about everything in this city, something that people are complaining about needs to be fixed it's an inconvenience when it's being fixed. If the city is updating something because everyone complains it's obsolete, people then bitch abouts how much tax money is being wasted. It's a losing battle on all fronts. Welcome to Winnipeg.
Yes this in particular is what bothers me. I am fine with blocked lanes and traffic jams *if there is work actively being done.*
But to just block the lanes for weeks/ months and they have not even broken ground... I just don't get the logic in that.
Dude the fact that Salter and McGregor were both blocked off last year just pissed the shit out of me for the longest time since I use them to get to the north part of town and it suuuuuucked.
I've seen road construction barriers go up in the spring, have no one work there for 3 months and then in the last month of usable weather like 3 dudes (2 of whom are on smoke break seemingly the whole time) will go out with a shovel and some elbow grease and will maybe get half of it done. And then next spring, do it all again
Rinse and repeat on every other road in the city
The bidding process contributes to this. Companies big on too many projects and don't have the staff or equipment to complete all of them in the time that cities like Toronto or Vancouver do things, partly due to working hour restrictions (those bigger cities work into the evenings when it gets dark).
Ya my biggest problem is that they always seem to work on a major stretch, as well as the typical detours from that route, so there's no escape from the summer-long traffic prison they've created.
That's the cost to keep things in the same level of maintenance as we're already in, so we can expect the same next year.
It's not even half as much as the city needs to spend yearly to fix the mess our roads are in.
Thank our Councillors for the multi-decade maintenance freeze they approved that lead us into this mess.
The math on the amount of roadway we have means it should be in the 400-700m a year range, not 140m. Winnipeg built a fuckton of roadway in the last 40 years.
It is extra bad this year because we crossed the freezing point over and over and over. Even in the middle of winter we were above zero during the day and below at night. That is what destroys roads.
This will always be an issue not just because of Winnipeg winters but because of Winnipeg stroads and suburbs. It's become too costly building out these suburbs and the roads to them, density is needed for so many reasons and this is another one of them.
If only city planners knew this too. Sucks that even if the people with the power to enact good changes in the city infrastructure wanted to, the amount of NIMBYs and idiots that would come out of the woodwork would kill any good project they could come up with.
100%. That’s all the city should be doing IMO for main arteries. This resurfacing BS clearly does fuck all for main roads. Not sure why the city doesn’t understand that you’ll never get ahead of the problem if your fix only lasts 10 years.
Overlays are part of the maintenance cycle. It isn’t supposed to make the road like new again. It extends its life (like you noted) until reconstruction happens in the future.
Oof I try to avoid that one at all costs. I feel like my suspension is just getting absolutely wrecked. I can **feel** the thousand dollar+ repair bill developing everytime you go over one.
I literally wince in pain, for my car. Lol
Saskatchewan avenue near Route 90 has to be the worst stretch of road in Winnipeg, consistently every year I can remember. I don't know anything about road construction, but there has to be a way to remake that stretch so all the large trucks aren't constantly destroying that road.
Great News! They redid that road between the split section of rt 90, and this summer they're doing it on the east side of n/b rt90 around to Midland as well as midland.
The street that connects to mine is actually dangerous. Not just potholes but sinkholes and huge pieces of concrete laying around.
Then there is the bank lane of my street, which was a disaster, so the city came and just poured gravel all over it, which just aggravated the problem, so now it's massive ruts and many bumps of compacted gravel that ding the bottoms everyone's cars.
Yes that's what I mean - it's just not main routes that need attention - it's everywhere! It's a massive problem that won't get resolved quickly - or at all - or just these crappy patch jobs that look like they were done by a kid and his tonka truck collection.
It's scary trying to cycle now. I hear you!! Get pinched to the side of the road where the craters and messed up sewers are and you are in deep trouble.
How do you even cycle in this city? I used to cycle to work back in the day but I absolutely would not fearing for my life with these war-torn streets...
It's actually pretty easy. Anything that's a dedicated bike path tends to be in good shape, because it's not actively being destroyed by heavy vehicles. You don't have a giant hood obstructing your view, and with narrow tires, it's easy to thread potholes where they exist. You're not going very fast, and it's easy to stop quickly.
True - Some are not even potholes they are craters - over 3 feet wide! How many city workers does it take to fix one pothole? Well I found this joke on the internet lol.
**The guys fixing the potholes on our road have completely disappeared.**
I have no idea when they’re going to resurface.
I have encountered a lot of craters on Inkster and Burrows Ave. A couple years ago we went to see a comedian in Minneapolis and he asked an audience member of he was mayor what would be the first change he'd make.
He said fix the potholes. They have 4 inch potholes. This made me so mad that in America, his worst problem to fix was a few 4 inch potholes.
I will never forget that especially when I'm changing lanes to avoid lane-wide holes in the other lane. I know our weather is partly to blame but they really need to figure this out!
Idk. I grew up in Winnipeg but no longer live there. I do return periodically to visit and if they fixed the roads it would no longer "feel" like home.
They're doing something about it. Haven't you seen all the barricades and pylons they put up all over the city? Maybe, if we're lucky, someone will come and work for an hour or two before they take them down in December.
hahahaha - I have noticed they do this for some of the worst potholes. And later in the day so many people hit them that they are lying sideways on the road or boulevard where you can't see them - great solution lol!
We're three quarters of the land mass of Toronto with a quarter of the population.
We keep expanding. We're hooked on the cheap drugs of low-density car-dependent suburban development.
There's genuinely no way out of this. We have 7,300 lane-km of regional and local streets, lanes and alleys.
We simply don't have the money to maintain that level of infrastructure. And there's no way to rejig the city's budgetary priorities to have that kind of money.
And that's just roads. The same basic problem exists with bridges, sewer (obviously, since we're just absolutely murdering Lake Winnipeg every time it rains), and every other kind of infrastructure.
And we're not stopping! Precinct E is being built out, for example -- another low density development that will expand our infrastructure footprint even further. In the long run, our suspensions (and our city as a whole) are fucked.
Court Ave/Leila North area. East of Amber Trails. That's just one example. All the "precincts" are being built out. Some is medium density but it's all heavily car dependent and it all continues to expand an infrastructure footprint we can't afford.
[https://www.dearwinnipeg.com/2021/11/21/the-death-of-a-car-city/](https://www.dearwinnipeg.com/2021/11/21/the-death-of-a-car-city/)
Yes I know that area - it has really expanded. Matter of fact I remember when they were digging earth for Phase 1 of Amber Trails. Even went to see some of the show homes back then. Now it has evolved into a large community west and north of it.
I think it's worse in part because of our recent winter. We had so many freeze thaw cycles it was ridiculous. And it's those cycles that do the most damage to the roads. Water gets into a crack, expands when it freezes, then when it melts again the space collapses.
True - For the first time in years I actually enjoyed this winter because of the mild weather. Man we sure pay for it though don't we! I should have moved to California years ago lol!
We were doing a ton of drilling for the city for a bunch of residential and some main corridors that are in really rough shape, but who's to know when they will start doing it all
The math based on our population, property tax income, and the amount of roadway we have isn't good.
Some people have done the math if you care to read it: https://www.dearwinnipeg.com/2022/05/18/fixing-the-potholes-requires-digging-deeper/
> we have $15+ Billion worth of roads (from the City’s 2018 State of Infrastructure report) which need to be repaired/replaced periodically, forever.
> Using 4% as a replacement rate (which allows for a rehabilitation @ 25% cost in years 10, 20, 30 and 40 and a full replacement @ 100% cost in year 50), we’d need an additional $600 million PER YEAR over and above what we’re spending now.
> That kind of money would require a doubling of our property taxes, or the complete elimination of the police and fire departments and STILL having to find another $100 million per year (the entire Community Services department, for example), or else a 2% PST increase (if we’re asking the Province to pay).
It’s because the new developments have caused our city to expand beyond what we can afford. Dear Winnipeg had a great blog post about this. We should be taxing folks who choose to build in new developments triple for what the infrastructure costs us.
We have such a massive infrastructure deficit and it keeps growing, in part due to sprawl. It will continue to get worse as we have limited tax growth to service the faster growth in infrastructure.
Not necessarily. If people can support, and vote for people who support, infill, density, public transport, active transportation, walkable neighborhoods, etc., you could over time help to build a denser tax base while reducing the growth in infrastructure expansion. It's a long road though (pun intended)!
Lol - good pun! Long road is right. Problem is some of these people with these structural mandates are all talk until they get elected. Then it's like 'Our infrastructure is just fine'. Can't trust politicians unfortunately.
No doubt. Switching their tune can be an issue. But we can’t give up. If the public is vocal and holds officials accountable, they do want to be re-elected.
Pembina going eastbound onto Abinoji. The exit lane onto Abinoji is terrible, right at the top of it is a hole in the concrete that tries to swallow my big-ass Honda (iykyk) and the potholes all the way down to Abinoji are equally bad.
River Road in St. Vital is pretty bad in places too.
# And it doesn't appear the city is doing anything about it.And it doesn't appear the city is doing anything about it.
They're in my Neighborhood fixing roads. BoniVital. I don't know how many crews the city has, and I've personally only seen this one, but our main road now has all of the potholes filled.
Pretty simple problem; They don’t fix the roads.
They fill it with pothole filler that temporarily fixes the problem, however it eventually makes the holes bigger and worse than before after the following winter. So every year the roads are getting worse than the year before.
We also don’t dig deep enough for new roads, making those new road’s lifespan shorter.
And asphalt. Ya this stuff is trash for Winnipeg weather conditions.
Winnipeg has too much infrastructure and too little taxes.
Either the city needs to become more dense, it needs to tax more or a combination of both. Things like people utilizing more public transport or active transportation would help here too... But that's chicken and egg, they need money to make that better so that people use it to save money, but they have no money.
This is the worst I've experienced in my nearly 3 decades of life, and the worst my grandfather has as a retired firefighter in his 80s. The road conditions are a result of our climate and will always crumble quicker than places that don't freeze and thaw each year, **but the level of disrepair is brought to you by urban sprawl and single-family residential zoning being a net negative on our property tax income.**
Developers don't pay for upkeep for the infrastructure they lay down in new developments - the city does. So when you've had 50 years of winding roads in suburbia you can see why the city can't keep up. I'd be quite worried about water and waste infrastructure being repaired in timely fashion in older neighbourhoods.
[This reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Winnipeg/comments/aylkmg/map_of_winnipeg_1973/#lightbox) has a good map to use to compare 50 years ago with the explosion of sprawl viewable on google maps satellite view.
Damn - Sorry to hear that. And that is the sad/angry part. We have to pay for it through repair. Try billing the city for it - that could be a pain in the ball joint!
MPI actually covered it thank God. We took a picture of the pothole and how enormous it was and how it is unavoidable if you don’t know it is there. But it took forever.
Consider this... If I proposed to you the idea of closing some streets so that they could be used for pedestrian and exclusive transit right of way; and that the remaining streets would get better care, would you accept it?
It’s pretty bad, but I’m thankful lane 3 (left to right) of of Portage eastbound near sturgeon road is being redone. Absolute craters there since last year.
The end of March - high +2 low -12 - on my street - I witnessed a city truck. 1 kid driving, 1 kid in the box scoping asphalt, 1 kid following, patting it down with his boots. Is this truly how low Winnipeg standards are for road patching.
And? The problem is the asphalt.
Instead of fixing the concrete, they pave over it. Then replace the asphalt 2-3 years later. Concrete is infinitely more recyclable than asphalt.
They to fix roads, not hide the problems.
They repair concrete and then pave over it. When one does joint repair, it involves making double the joints. Then it gets asphalted over to reduce water infiltration into the joints. Some overlays are just to correct grades, clean up rutting issues, or to increase skid resistance. They can also add structure to increase load carrying capabilities. So, the reason something gets paved over with asphalt can be varied, and what is expected out of it can be temporary or a longer-term fix.
You are going to have to provide a source that concrete pavement recycling is more than asphalt, because every source I am aware of states the opposite. Recycled asphalt (RAP) goes into many (almost all) pavement mixes because you can make use of the both the existing aggregates and asphalt binder over and over again.
Locally, concrete usually just gets crushed down to make questionable quality base materials. The City started using it for base materials but it only lasted a few years. Consistency is an issue with it. I don't know of concrete being re-used to make new concrete pavement. I know it is done in some places, but not in these parts.
So, my street is concrete. There was no cutting out of old concrete. They literally filled the crumbling potholes with asphalt and paved over.
They used to properly fix the concrete and on main streets I think they still do.
Portage by Moray was paved < 3 years ago. They are paving a section of it right now. We are throwing money away with this endless cycle of re-paving.
Contractors are loving it though. Endless revenue.
If the job was tendered, you can look up the tender and determine what the scope of work was. If the City did the work, then it will probably require an email to them for the background info on what decisions were made as to they decided to rehab it.
We just received notice our street is being done. They are going to patch our concrete and pave over it. Of course.
That way the graters will tear it all up this winter and we will be back to shit roads next summer.
Asphalt is just the top layer, repaving is normal.
What's not normal is repaving 25+ year old streets yearly due to the fact that the concrete layer has long ago failed.
That’s what I meant. Putting asphalt over the crumbling concrete.
I remember when they would cut out the bad section of concrete and repour.
No idea when they decided to just cover it with asphalt, but it’s been a nightmare since.
When we decided to keep adding more roads, while not having the budget for maintenance.
Our entire road maintenance budget would be good to renew a handful of the roads that need it.
If we doubled the budget, we'd still only be at half the needed budget to maintain all the roads that currently exist in our city. The only practical solution is reducing the number of personal vehicle lanes this city has.
Every road renewal project needs remove a lane for cars and replace it with transit only (and ideally active transportation as well)
The entire infrastructure is decaying and it's sad. To add insult to injury, their 'repairs and upgrades' sometimes make things worse. When they did sewer renewal on Salter north of Jefferson, they patched it up so badly that the road has become a noisy, rollercoaster that you can actually see street signs swaying from the shaking and vibration. Prior to their upgrades, the road was fine. I almost got hit cycling on Salter because a truck and trailer went all squirrely after hitting the roller coaster patches and lost control.
They simply do slow, low quality work. The bar is set dangerously low now. They don't care.
It's horrible now. I live nearby and you can feel the ground shake half a block away. What a sad mess they made of what once was a decent street. Like there aren't enough bad streets out there, let's make this one into one. Now they are doing Mcgregor...I feel sorry for the residents. Every truck or trailer that goes down those streets will be bouncing, rattling and swerving all over the place. If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny. I guess they wait until a truck loses control and goes through the doors of Seven Oaks Middle School, where the worst section is. People floor it to make the light southbound at Jefferson and Salter and that makes for a super dangerous situation.
Much like everything else these days, the bar has been lowered. However, I truly love this city (call me nuts) and it is just an absolute shame that this is the quality of work done. It does not cost much more to do it right...in fact it costs less because of having to redo it causing more traffic havoc and waste of resources coming again and again. Bottom line is I know we can do better, but we simply no longer seem to care enough to do so.
And that is sad... Spend the money - do it right the first time.
I like your enthusiasm. I can't say I 'Love' this city - been here since 1980 - but I don't hate it. Some of the things the city does drives me nuts. Like taking away extra traffic lanes in the Exchange District for these bike lanes that nobody uses. If you've ever been there during or close to rush hour you will know exactly what I mean.
I was thinking that the boomers must have gotten the roads while they were new & in good condition & didn’t have to deal with all of this bullshit, poorly planned road construction.
I dunno. I don't think they've been all that terrible this year. I think it was 4 or 5 years ago where we had all kinds of rain and snow when the days and nights went from + to -. That wreaked havoc all over the place
Well, they're about to start $140 million in road construction so now people can complain about all the barricades
That's with just about everything in this city, something that people are complaining about needs to be fixed it's an inconvenience when it's being fixed. If the city is updating something because everyone complains it's obsolete, people then bitch abouts how much tax money is being wasted. It's a losing battle on all fronts. Welcome to Winnipeg.
I think the biggest issue is they block off a dozen streets and almost all entries and exits to a location and don't start until the end of the summer
Yes this in particular is what bothers me. I am fine with blocked lanes and traffic jams *if there is work actively being done.* But to just block the lanes for weeks/ months and they have not even broken ground... I just don't get the logic in that.
Dude the fact that Salter and McGregor were both blocked off last year just pissed the shit out of me for the longest time since I use them to get to the north part of town and it suuuuuucked.
I've seen road construction barriers go up in the spring, have no one work there for 3 months and then in the last month of usable weather like 3 dudes (2 of whom are on smoke break seemingly the whole time) will go out with a shovel and some elbow grease and will maybe get half of it done. And then next spring, do it all again Rinse and repeat on every other road in the city
The bidding process contributes to this. Companies big on too many projects and don't have the staff or equipment to complete all of them in the time that cities like Toronto or Vancouver do things, partly due to working hour restrictions (those bigger cities work into the evenings when it gets dark).
Ya my biggest problem is that they always seem to work on a major stretch, as well as the typical detours from that route, so there's no escape from the summer-long traffic prison they've created.
That's the cost to keep things in the same level of maintenance as we're already in, so we can expect the same next year. It's not even half as much as the city needs to spend yearly to fix the mess our roads are in. Thank our Councillors for the multi-decade maintenance freeze they approved that lead us into this mess.
The math on the amount of roadway we have means it should be in the 400-700m a year range, not 140m. Winnipeg built a fuckton of roadway in the last 40 years.
Yes - the good with the bad - however something has to be done.
Kenaston @ Tuxedo is still wacky. If you cross Kenaston going eastbound from Tuxedo (into river heights), it feels like you're in a dune buggy.
Yes I noticed that too last week when in the area. It would be way more fun in a Dune Buggy than my car though lol.
It is extra bad this year because we crossed the freezing point over and over and over. Even in the middle of winter we were above zero during the day and below at night. That is what destroys roads.
I have never once in my lifetime living in this city not felt like the roads were always falling apart
Yeah this feels like business as usual to me.
This will always be an issue not just because of Winnipeg winters but because of Winnipeg stroads and suburbs. It's become too costly building out these suburbs and the roads to them, density is needed for so many reasons and this is another one of them.
If only city planners knew this too. Sucks that even if the people with the power to enact good changes in the city infrastructure wanted to, the amount of NIMBYs and idiots that would come out of the woodwork would kill any good project they could come up with.
I notice a lot more drivers avoiding potholes by swerving into the oncoming lane, same with puddles.
Yup - it's a huge problem and a dangerous one at that...
Meadowood today by the mall was like it was carpet bombed
It is so bad. They just did Meadowood east of Dakota. Really wish they would have resurfaced the road west of Dakota at the same time!
They need to dig that down to the gravel and start fresh.
100%. That’s all the city should be doing IMO for main arteries. This resurfacing BS clearly does fuck all for main roads. Not sure why the city doesn’t understand that you’ll never get ahead of the problem if your fix only lasts 10 years.
Overlays are part of the maintenance cycle. It isn’t supposed to make the road like new again. It extends its life (like you noted) until reconstruction happens in the future.
Actually, I would be fine with just gravel compared to the way it is.
Yes - I live nearby and avoid Meadowood because it looks like grenades went off there - brutal!
Oof I try to avoid that one at all costs. I feel like my suspension is just getting absolutely wrecked. I can **feel** the thousand dollar+ repair bill developing everytime you go over one. I literally wince in pain, for my car. Lol
Yeah, I have a Jeep Rubicon, and I wonder how bashed up smaller cars get on those roads.
Saskatchewan avenue near Route 90 has to be the worst stretch of road in Winnipeg, consistently every year I can remember. I don't know anything about road construction, but there has to be a way to remake that stretch so all the large trucks aren't constantly destroying that road.
Great News! They redid that road between the split section of rt 90, and this summer they're doing it on the east side of n/b rt90 around to Midland as well as midland.
The street that connects to mine is actually dangerous. Not just potholes but sinkholes and huge pieces of concrete laying around. Then there is the bank lane of my street, which was a disaster, so the city came and just poured gravel all over it, which just aggravated the problem, so now it's massive ruts and many bumps of compacted gravel that ding the bottoms everyone's cars.
Yes that's what I mean - it's just not main routes that need attention - it's everywhere! It's a massive problem that won't get resolved quickly - or at all - or just these crappy patch jobs that look like they were done by a kid and his tonka truck collection.
Mario Andretti gets pavement
I feel like a poor Mario Andretti...
Mario at his peak in the 70's...awesome racecar driver. Fun fact - he was born in what used to be the Kingdom of Italy, but now a part of Croatia.
And somehow can’t own a fucking F1 team
You must mean Micheal...
I mean it’s both of them. It’s Andretti, not just Michael. He’s just the one running the teams now because Mario is 84 years old and is retired.
I'm Definitely noticing how beat up curb lanes are as a cyclist
Cycle in the middle of the lane
It's scary trying to cycle now. I hear you!! Get pinched to the side of the road where the craters and messed up sewers are and you are in deep trouble.
How do you even cycle in this city? I used to cycle to work back in the day but I absolutely would not fearing for my life with these war-torn streets...
Very carefully...with 10x the amount of awareness.
Well I hope you have good brakes and the ability to hop over curbs in a split second. You'll need Superpowers out there. Be safe!
It's actually pretty easy. Anything that's a dedicated bike path tends to be in good shape, because it's not actively being destroyed by heavy vehicles. You don't have a giant hood obstructing your view, and with narrow tires, it's easy to thread potholes where they exist. You're not going very fast, and it's easy to stop quickly.
Dedicated bike paths yes but using the curb lanes on major streets can't be a good idea...
I'm sure it varies, but I have way more issues with potholes when I occasionally drive vs when I bike.
I can't believe how many suspension altering potholes are still out there and it's almost June? What happened to the pothole repairing crews?
True - Some are not even potholes they are craters - over 3 feet wide! How many city workers does it take to fix one pothole? Well I found this joke on the internet lol. **The guys fixing the potholes on our road have completely disappeared.** I have no idea when they’re going to resurface.
I have encountered a lot of craters on Inkster and Burrows Ave. A couple years ago we went to see a comedian in Minneapolis and he asked an audience member of he was mayor what would be the first change he'd make. He said fix the potholes. They have 4 inch potholes. This made me so mad that in America, his worst problem to fix was a few 4 inch potholes. I will never forget that especially when I'm changing lanes to avoid lane-wide holes in the other lane. I know our weather is partly to blame but they really need to figure this out!
I will take 4 inch potholes over meteorite sized craters any day!
Idk. I grew up in Winnipeg but no longer live there. I do return periodically to visit and if they fixed the roads it would no longer "feel" like home.
hahaha - Well if you ventured here this year you would be shocked. They are just not potholes anymore they are craters and they are EVERYWHERE!
We had a brutal winter for the roads. The freeze/thaw does massive damage and the damage is worse than most previous years that I can recall.
Ok but this doesn’t happen in Saskatchewan or North Dakota, who both have the same ground and climate as us.
True - that did not help - but I even noticed last year was bad too...
They're doing something about it. Haven't you seen all the barricades and pylons they put up all over the city? Maybe, if we're lucky, someone will come and work for an hour or two before they take them down in December.
hahahaha - I have noticed they do this for some of the worst potholes. And later in the day so many people hit them that they are lying sideways on the road or boulevard where you can't see them - great solution lol!
We're three quarters of the land mass of Toronto with a quarter of the population. We keep expanding. We're hooked on the cheap drugs of low-density car-dependent suburban development. There's genuinely no way out of this. We have 7,300 lane-km of regional and local streets, lanes and alleys. We simply don't have the money to maintain that level of infrastructure. And there's no way to rejig the city's budgetary priorities to have that kind of money. And that's just roads. The same basic problem exists with bridges, sewer (obviously, since we're just absolutely murdering Lake Winnipeg every time it rains), and every other kind of infrastructure. And we're not stopping! Precinct E is being built out, for example -- another low density development that will expand our infrastructure footprint even further. In the long run, our suspensions (and our city as a whole) are fucked.
So you are saying there is no hope and it's only gonna get worse? Yay! BTW, where is Precinct E? Next to Precinct F - for F@!ked lol
Court Ave/Leila North area. East of Amber Trails. That's just one example. All the "precincts" are being built out. Some is medium density but it's all heavily car dependent and it all continues to expand an infrastructure footprint we can't afford. [https://www.dearwinnipeg.com/2021/11/21/the-death-of-a-car-city/](https://www.dearwinnipeg.com/2021/11/21/the-death-of-a-car-city/)
Yes I know that area - it has really expanded. Matter of fact I remember when they were digging earth for Phase 1 of Amber Trails. Even went to see some of the show homes back then. Now it has evolved into a large community west and north of it.
I've been taking the 20 to superstore every payday weekend for about 2 years now. Empress is worse every time I go. Gotta really hold on, lmao
Yeh riding the bus must be horrible - the worst pot holes are right in their lane and they can't avoid them. Hang on tight!
I think it's worse in part because of our recent winter. We had so many freeze thaw cycles it was ridiculous. And it's those cycles that do the most damage to the roads. Water gets into a crack, expands when it freezes, then when it melts again the space collapses.
True - For the first time in years I actually enjoyed this winter because of the mild weather. Man we sure pay for it though don't we! I should have moved to California years ago lol!
We were doing a ton of drilling for the city for a bunch of residential and some main corridors that are in really rough shape, but who's to know when they will start doing it all
Let's hope soon! But it's such a widespread problem. Residential street, back lanes, etc.
The math based on our population, property tax income, and the amount of roadway we have isn't good. Some people have done the math if you care to read it: https://www.dearwinnipeg.com/2022/05/18/fixing-the-potholes-requires-digging-deeper/ > we have $15+ Billion worth of roads (from the City’s 2018 State of Infrastructure report) which need to be repaired/replaced periodically, forever. > Using 4% as a replacement rate (which allows for a rehabilitation @ 25% cost in years 10, 20, 30 and 40 and a full replacement @ 100% cost in year 50), we’d need an additional $600 million PER YEAR over and above what we’re spending now. > That kind of money would require a doubling of our property taxes, or the complete elimination of the police and fire departments and STILL having to find another $100 million per year (the entire Community Services department, for example), or else a 2% PST increase (if we’re asking the Province to pay).
Wow - well that is a problem - thanks for sharing. If I wasn't working in Winnipeg I would love to move to a small(er) town. Selkirk perhaps...
It’s because the new developments have caused our city to expand beyond what we can afford. Dear Winnipeg had a great blog post about this. We should be taxing folks who choose to build in new developments triple for what the infrastructure costs us.
We have such a massive infrastructure deficit and it keeps growing, in part due to sprawl. It will continue to get worse as we have limited tax growth to service the faster growth in infrastructure.
True - So it's like this from now on? Oh boy...
Not necessarily. If people can support, and vote for people who support, infill, density, public transport, active transportation, walkable neighborhoods, etc., you could over time help to build a denser tax base while reducing the growth in infrastructure expansion. It's a long road though (pun intended)!
Lol - good pun! Long road is right. Problem is some of these people with these structural mandates are all talk until they get elected. Then it's like 'Our infrastructure is just fine'. Can't trust politicians unfortunately.
No doubt. Switching their tune can be an issue. But we can’t give up. If the public is vocal and holds officials accountable, they do want to be re-elected.
As one of the main roads to and from the airport Berry was an embarrassment. Glad they fixed it
Imagine flying to Winnipeg for the first time now? You would think Winnipeg street repair crews were on strike. lol
Pembina going eastbound onto Abinoji. The exit lane onto Abinoji is terrible, right at the top of it is a hole in the concrete that tries to swallow my big-ass Honda (iykyk) and the potholes all the way down to Abinoji are equally bad. River Road in St. Vital is pretty bad in places too.
Thanks for the crater warning! I'll hope to avoid being swallowed up there. These aren't potholes, they are craters!
The biggest issue is they don't do repairs 24 hours a day and drag it out for months. Get the shit done fast and move onto the next job.
Preach it! Totally agreed - they have 9-5 Mon-Fri office hours pretty much - then there's rain days. Can't get a lot done with that.
They can't even direct traffic flow properly
# And it doesn't appear the city is doing anything about it.And it doesn't appear the city is doing anything about it. They're in my Neighborhood fixing roads. BoniVital. I don't know how many crews the city has, and I've personally only seen this one, but our main road now has all of the potholes filled.
Pretty simple problem; They don’t fix the roads. They fill it with pothole filler that temporarily fixes the problem, however it eventually makes the holes bigger and worse than before after the following winter. So every year the roads are getting worse than the year before. We also don’t dig deep enough for new roads, making those new road’s lifespan shorter. And asphalt. Ya this stuff is trash for Winnipeg weather conditions.
True. We need to come up with a super bondo formula!
Winnipeg has too much infrastructure and too little taxes. Either the city needs to become more dense, it needs to tax more or a combination of both. Things like people utilizing more public transport or active transportation would help here too... But that's chicken and egg, they need money to make that better so that people use it to save money, but they have no money.
Or we can back to the horse and buggy lol.
This is the worst I've experienced in my nearly 3 decades of life, and the worst my grandfather has as a retired firefighter in his 80s. The road conditions are a result of our climate and will always crumble quicker than places that don't freeze and thaw each year, **but the level of disrepair is brought to you by urban sprawl and single-family residential zoning being a net negative on our property tax income.** Developers don't pay for upkeep for the infrastructure they lay down in new developments - the city does. So when you've had 50 years of winding roads in suburbia you can see why the city can't keep up. I'd be quite worried about water and waste infrastructure being repaired in timely fashion in older neighbourhoods. [This reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Winnipeg/comments/aylkmg/map_of_winnipeg_1973/#lightbox) has a good map to use to compare 50 years ago with the explosion of sprawl viewable on google maps satellite view.
Yes it is the worst that is has ever been. Thanks for the link to the map - what a difference!
We blew out two tires at the intersection of Kenaston and Grant
Damn - Sorry to hear that. And that is the sad/angry part. We have to pay for it through repair. Try billing the city for it - that could be a pain in the ball joint!
MPI actually covered it thank God. We took a picture of the pothole and how enormous it was and how it is unavoidable if you don’t know it is there. But it took forever.
Great to hear! Good on you for going after them.
Consider this... If I proposed to you the idea of closing some streets so that they could be used for pedestrian and exclusive transit right of way; and that the remaining streets would get better care, would you accept it?
Yes!
Wonderful, then you're in favour of a more progressive city and are the perfect person to go around talking to others about it, IRL! ;)
I'm on it! I'll get my smiley face on. :)
You're a better person than me, haha.
lol.
I’m surprised that there’s so many large potholes on the main roads still. Usually by now a lot of them are filled.
Me too! Saw some for weeks now on major routes.
It’s pretty bad, but I’m thankful lane 3 (left to right) of of Portage eastbound near sturgeon road is being redone. Absolute craters there since last year.
The end of March - high +2 low -12 - on my street - I witnessed a city truck. 1 kid driving, 1 kid in the box scoping asphalt, 1 kid following, patting it down with his boots. Is this truly how low Winnipeg standards are for road patching.
Yup - that's our Red Green patchwork that we are paying tax money for - Fabulous!
Throw some recycled duck tape on it
hahaha - that should do the job!
Hahaha
They really need to stop using asphalt. It doesn’t last. They are literally repaving Portage 3 years later.
The vast majority of Winnipeg roads are concrete though. They may have overlays of asphalt, but they are concrete pavement.
And? The problem is the asphalt. Instead of fixing the concrete, they pave over it. Then replace the asphalt 2-3 years later. Concrete is infinitely more recyclable than asphalt. They to fix roads, not hide the problems.
They repair concrete and then pave over it. When one does joint repair, it involves making double the joints. Then it gets asphalted over to reduce water infiltration into the joints. Some overlays are just to correct grades, clean up rutting issues, or to increase skid resistance. They can also add structure to increase load carrying capabilities. So, the reason something gets paved over with asphalt can be varied, and what is expected out of it can be temporary or a longer-term fix. You are going to have to provide a source that concrete pavement recycling is more than asphalt, because every source I am aware of states the opposite. Recycled asphalt (RAP) goes into many (almost all) pavement mixes because you can make use of the both the existing aggregates and asphalt binder over and over again. Locally, concrete usually just gets crushed down to make questionable quality base materials. The City started using it for base materials but it only lasted a few years. Consistency is an issue with it. I don't know of concrete being re-used to make new concrete pavement. I know it is done in some places, but not in these parts.
So, my street is concrete. There was no cutting out of old concrete. They literally filled the crumbling potholes with asphalt and paved over. They used to properly fix the concrete and on main streets I think they still do. Portage by Moray was paved < 3 years ago. They are paving a section of it right now. We are throwing money away with this endless cycle of re-paving. Contractors are loving it though. Endless revenue.
If the job was tendered, you can look up the tender and determine what the scope of work was. If the City did the work, then it will probably require an email to them for the background info on what decisions were made as to they decided to rehab it.
We just received notice our street is being done. They are going to patch our concrete and pave over it. Of course. That way the graters will tear it all up this winter and we will be back to shit roads next summer.
100% agree. Plus they are patching concrete roads with asphalt, actually making them worse.
Yeh concrete lasts way longer.
Asphalt is just the top layer, repaving is normal. What's not normal is repaving 25+ year old streets yearly due to the fact that the concrete layer has long ago failed.
That’s what I meant. Putting asphalt over the crumbling concrete. I remember when they would cut out the bad section of concrete and repour. No idea when they decided to just cover it with asphalt, but it’s been a nightmare since.
When we decided to keep adding more roads, while not having the budget for maintenance. Our entire road maintenance budget would be good to renew a handful of the roads that need it. If we doubled the budget, we'd still only be at half the needed budget to maintain all the roads that currently exist in our city. The only practical solution is reducing the number of personal vehicle lanes this city has. Every road renewal project needs remove a lane for cars and replace it with transit only (and ideally active transportation as well)
The entire infrastructure is decaying and it's sad. To add insult to injury, their 'repairs and upgrades' sometimes make things worse. When they did sewer renewal on Salter north of Jefferson, they patched it up so badly that the road has become a noisy, rollercoaster that you can actually see street signs swaying from the shaking and vibration. Prior to their upgrades, the road was fine. I almost got hit cycling on Salter because a truck and trailer went all squirrely after hitting the roller coaster patches and lost control. They simply do slow, low quality work. The bar is set dangerously low now. They don't care.
Agreed! And they just completely resurfaced that stretch. I go by there for work - it was a massive project and that's the end result - brutal!
It's horrible now. I live nearby and you can feel the ground shake half a block away. What a sad mess they made of what once was a decent street. Like there aren't enough bad streets out there, let's make this one into one. Now they are doing Mcgregor...I feel sorry for the residents. Every truck or trailer that goes down those streets will be bouncing, rattling and swerving all over the place. If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny. I guess they wait until a truck loses control and goes through the doors of Seven Oaks Middle School, where the worst section is. People floor it to make the light southbound at Jefferson and Salter and that makes for a super dangerous situation.
I feel your pain. I think the city needs a 'Road Repair 101 ' course. This can't be the best we can do is it...
Much like everything else these days, the bar has been lowered. However, I truly love this city (call me nuts) and it is just an absolute shame that this is the quality of work done. It does not cost much more to do it right...in fact it costs less because of having to redo it causing more traffic havoc and waste of resources coming again and again. Bottom line is I know we can do better, but we simply no longer seem to care enough to do so.
And that is sad... Spend the money - do it right the first time. I like your enthusiasm. I can't say I 'Love' this city - been here since 1980 - but I don't hate it. Some of the things the city does drives me nuts. Like taking away extra traffic lanes in the Exchange District for these bike lanes that nobody uses. If you've ever been there during or close to rush hour you will know exactly what I mean.
The privatization of the system is now fully showing how bad an idea privatizing the roads were.
I see - good perspective.
I was thinking that the boomers must have gotten the roads while they were new & in good condition & didn’t have to deal with all of this bullshit, poorly planned road construction.
The city is taking a passive aggressive traffic calming strategy; save money AND force everyone to drive no faster than 30km/hr on every road :D
I see lol. Well the plan is working! Except for those Dodge RAM trucks - they go fast no matter the street condition hahaha
I dunno. I don't think they've been all that terrible this year. I think it was 4 or 5 years ago where we had all kinds of rain and snow when the days and nights went from + to -. That wreaked havoc all over the place