Peguis Twining/Transcona west development.

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by vjose32

Well if they aren't going to twin it then they need to ban parking on it because it just impedes traffic flow, or they need to at the very least widen it to be like Jefferson.

There's no stopping during rush hour. I travel that route often, really don't see the need to ban parking otherwise. It's never that bad.

[Reignman]

Why do simple road projects take so bloody long around here? I live in Transcona and every time I went down Peguis this summer I was amazed at the lack of progress since my last visit to Costco. This is not exactly complicated work. It's a frickin two lane addition to an existing roadway that stretches less than a km.

The amount of time they had, there's no reason Peguis shouldn't have been completed by now including the intersection with the Reenders extension. At least then there would be another option than just congested Regent Ave to provide access when one desires to utilize the highly efficient Lightsimodiere.

[cllew]

Next block over from me was being reconstructed and it took over two months to break the old concrete out, put a new base course in and pour concrete.

I looked at the city tender document and the contractor did not finish in what was the published time frame so they probably paid out the daily late fee.

Not that the late fees are a motivation as I recall reading in the Free Press earlier this year a public works person was saying the contractors know they can't finish in the tendered time frames and they build the late fees into the bid amount.

Net result is the city pays more up front and may get some money back depending on how late each project finishes.

[bomberjet]

Well Peguis is completed and was completed for a while. It sat waiting for the intersection with Regent. Which I'm assuming was on the Cities end for either permitting or scheduling to install the signals.

But like Cllew said, contractors will build in overages. The City has acknowledged that with the increased budget for road repairs that all the voters wanted, the Cities construction companies simply don't have the capacity. And it's not a matter of "just hire more workers", you need skilled workers. Which just aren't available. And believe it or not, it's a skill to be on road crew. Need to know what you're doing and do it right. You go hire some guy off the street and all he'll do is push a broom around.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Well Peguis is completed and was completed for a while. It sat waiting for the intersection with Regent. Which I'm assuming was on the Cities end for either permitting or scheduling to install the signals.

But like Cllew said, contractors will build in overages. The City has acknowledged that with the increased budget for road repairs that all the voters wanted, the Cities construction companies simply don't have the capacity. And it's not a matter of "just hire more workers", you need skilled workers. Which just aren't available. And believe it or not, it's a skill to be on road crew. Need to know what you're doing and do it right. You go hire some guy off the street and all he'll do is push a broom around.

It's semi skilled work, nothing that someone couldn't be trained to do in a relatively short time. Don't know if some these road crews are unionized or not but watching a lot of them work I would assume they are. With the productivity level of some of the crews and with some of the companies you have to figure the winning bids must be really high to let guys fart around and milk the jobs like they do.

[cllew]

Its actually interesting to go on the city web page and see the bid results for some projects. There can be a big difference between the bids.

There was almost $900,000.00 difference between the highest bid and the low winning bid on the paving work that was done on Henderson Highway between Munroe and Hespler in 2015.

$2,759,430 vs $1,854,285

[bomberjet]

^^It's a balancing act. You can hire some guy out of high school who can roll around in a packer, sure. But it's the guys that actually understand what's going on. How to read plans, how to properly set out your forming, etc. People that can run paving machines, both asphalt and concrete, properly. There's a lot of risk in it for the contractors. If they pounche a paving job, they could be on the hook for millions. Lets be honest, most workers have very low level of education. Many didn't finish high school or even junior/middle school.

So why would any of these companies, like Maple Leaf, Borland, etc. want to take on risk just because the City has more work? They don't. Construction is a high risk, low reward industry. Especially on a lot of these smaller jobs. Like Cllew said again, the disparity in pricing is two fold. One company bids high so they don't lose money. The next company bids low to get the job. So the company that needs work gets the job and hardly makes anything of it. If they make anything. Gotta keep your staff paid or they're gone somewhere else.

In Spain, they have laws where you can't lay off workers due to a work shortage. Our winter season for example. You get these companies coming into Canada looking for work. They team up with some of the larger companies on P3 and other large projects. They bid the job's with ZERO contingency. Fuckin ZERO. Not 10%, not %5, not 1%. Nothing. Extremely high risk. And they get the jobs, pay their workers so they don't get fined back in Spain. It's not getting fined $1K, it can be millions. Might break even if everything goes to plan. One screw up and they're losing money.

[plrh]

Originally Posted by Reignman

Why do simple road projects take so bloody long around here? I live in Transcona and every time I went down Peguis this summer I was amazed at the lack of progress since my last visit to Costco. This is not exactly complicated work. It's a frickin two lane addition to an existing roadway that stretches less than a km.

The amount of time they had, there's no reason Peguis shouldn't have been completed by now including the intersection with the Reenders extension. At least then there would be another option than just congested Regent Ave to provide access when one desires to utilize the highly efficient Lightsimodiere.

It was a bad year for subgrade work. The clay conditions can delay road construction a lot. If there isn't any good long dry spells it can be nearly impossible to get the clay dry enough to pass testing. Even consistent rain once or twice a week can put a road project on hold indefinitely.

There was a lot of pipe going in on Reenders too. Which adds another layer of complication.

[Bluenote]

Originally Posted by cllew

Its actually interesting to go on the city web page and see the bid results for some projects. There can be a big difference between the bids.

There was almost $900,000.00 difference between the highest bid and the low winning bid on the paving work that was done on Henderson Highway between Munroe and Hespler in 2015.

$2,759,430 vs $1,854,285

There is a reason why some bids are way way out there. Being in the trade and bidding myself on some smaller projects. It's company policy to overbid so you do NOT get the job. But the city still sees you bidding. The city has ruled for who can bid in what. And if you per say stop bidding then you get moved down the seniority ladder. So companies who are booked solid will bid just to bid.

My father in law who did a lot of work for the city and province would be booked solid all year with projects. Yet he still had to bid so he just over bid knowing he wouldn't get the job.

[plrh]

Originally Posted by Bluenote

There is a reason why some bids are way way out there. Being in the trade and bidding myself on some smaller projects. It's company policy to overbid so you do NOT get the job. But the city still sees you bidding. The city has ruled for who can bid in what. And if you per say stop bidding then you get moved down the seniority ladder. So companies who are booked solid will bid just to bid.

My father in law who did a lot of work for the city and province would be booked solid all year with projects. Yet he still had to bid so he just over bid knowing he wouldn't get the job.

A lot of times the estimator will guess who else is bidding by looking at what other work other companies have. They may then bid high if they know that there is a low probability of any other serious bids. For a lot of jobs there are only 5 or 6 likely bidders in town. Sometimes there are only 1 or 2 bidders, so they bid high and toss the dice for a big score.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by steveosnyder

Just seeing that rendering makes me throw up a little. I'm just glad they didn't do a street-level pic of all the people smiling and drinking their latte's while talking on their phone and walking beside traffic travelling 50-60 km/h.

Reminds me of a 60-70s Toronto public housing project.

[cllew]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

So have the city and MB Hydro got there act together and decided when lights should be installed so that the completed Reenders extension to Peguis can open or is that on hold until spring?


PS how many vehicles get damaged on the temporary asphalt curbs installed on Peguis where it veers from two lanes to four, back to two and then back to four. Did it not occur to one of the deep thinkers in city planning to completely four lane the roadway when the roadway was completely closed in the summer of 2014!?!

At KP today and Hydro was busy installing the bases and LED light standards on the new section. I guess they and the city got things going after the delay hit the media.

[bomberjet]

I find it kind of funny. Russ commented in the FreeP this afternoon that Hydro and the City should have been communicating better, etc. Fuck Russ, the City is such a mess, never mind Hydro. You as a representative of the people should do something about it! Probably just get laughed out of whatever office he stumbles in to.

Really there's nothing to do. The City does what they do on reviewing and approving plans. If nobody's giving out any timelines, just get the job done.

[cllew]

News release from city of Winnipeg about Reenders Drive extension opening today

http://winnipeg.ca/cao/media/news/nr...20151203.stm#3

With this opening Almey St at Ravelston will finally close on Dec 4.

[bomberjet]

Finally. Should be a much smoother flow of traffic. Instead of using the Lag/Almey intersection. So now those lights will be solely for the bank. City should have never allowed the bank to go in there, such a bad location. Now the City is stuck with it, unless they do some type of major project with Lag and Reenders/Regent interchange.

Is the intersection of Peguis and Reenders controlled by traffic signals yet?

[Reignman]

Only Winnipeg would leave a traffic light on an "expressway" to serve one business. Why not just a right in and right out only for SCU??

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by Reignman

Only Winnipeg would leave a traffic light on an "expressway" to serve one business. Why not just a right in and right out only for SCU??

Well exactly. I thought that was the plan all along. De-commission the lights, right in/out only. The bank wouldnt be too happy as access gets reduced. But again, a stupid location. Theres another one or two lots south of Almey that are trying to be developed too. The only real thing that could be done it to demo Olive Garden and connect a road to Reenders somehow. But that's not ideal either.

[rkspec]

4 way stop at concordia and peguis. So now i just have to deal with this at 4pm




wonder if they will ever twin concordia? The fire hydrants and sidewalks are already in place for it.

[bomberjet]

In the area structure plan it talks about intersection upgrades and the like at Concordia/Lag in the medium term. I could see, due to this situation, Concordia being twinned and upgraded from Molson to Peguis. Not sure on time lines though. Maybe sooner than later.

I've seen a number of people, including some friends of mine, almost run into the EB lane drop west of the overpass. Where the left lane of Concordia ends as the left turn lane onto the ramp. The right lane continues on below the underpass. Then at the last minute swerve over to the right haha. Kind of dangerous, but well signed.

Anyways, it should be reconstructed from where the Molson twinning project left off, through to Peguis. At the same time, upgrade Peguis from Concordia over the rail crossing. At least the City put up no parking signs there. People were taking up the whole NB lane. You come over the tracks and a shit tonne of cars parked on the road. Almost got dinged one time there last winter, guy coming the other way was a bit too far over.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by rkspec

4 way stop at concordia and peguis. So now i just have to deal with this at 4pm




wonder if they will ever twin concordia? The fire hydrants and sidewalks are already in place for it.

There is an example of the fine work from Winnipeg city planning!