Winnipeg Roads & Infrastructure

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by CoryB

There is an article today in the Metro that the proposed route for the Headingley by-pass would pass through some tall grass prairie. This is leading to questions on how the route could be changed. It may also impact future developments along the route.

Metro Winnipeg Article

From looking at Google, seems to me most of that tall grass prairie is to the north. The gun range already took over a large chunk of it. So only looks like a small area to the west of the gun range would be impacted. Maybe swing CCW as far south as possible.

[bomberjet]

The round-about at Sun Valley and Gateway is getting built starting in spring. Think this was talked about a while back.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/publicworks/M...ut/default.asp

Waverley underpass open house was last night, boards are posted here. Quite a bit of work going to happen to Taylor, Waverley and Sterling Lyon/Hurst Way.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/publicworks/M...ss/default.asp

[steveosnyder]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Waverley underpass open house was last night, boards are posted here. Quite a bit of work going to happen to Taylor, Waverley and Sterling Lyon/Hurst Way.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/publicworks/M...ss/default.asp

As everyone here more than likely knows, I have an opinion on this -- just sent an email to the areas councillor and his EA...

Good Afternoon Georgina,

I believe I made your office already aware of my concerns regarding the design of the Waverley Underpass -- the proposed design speed is higher than the posted legal speed limit.

Professional engineers use forgiving design standards in the thought that they make things safer for all. They do things like widening lanes, flattening hills, straightening curves, adding wide shoulders, adding turning lanes, grade-separating intersections/rail crossings, and removing items from the clear zone with the idea being that “if a driver goes out of their lane or off the road, they have room to recover”. This gives drivers the feeling of safety and they drive faster, which is the exact opposite of what should be happening.

This practice (which Mr. Neirinck, City of Winnipeg Project Manager said was common-place among engineers) has been shown to reduce the safe operation of the roadway, as outlined above. But not only is this practice unsafe it also costs the city more money. As Mr. Neirinck said, the sag and crest angles need to be shallower to maintain sightlines through the underpass, meaning they will have to channel from further back on both sides of the track. But higher design speeds also could potentially require: wider lanes, wider shoulders, wider clear zones. All these changes would affect the required ROW for the City, decrease the amount of land taxable by the City, increase the amount of paving required, and eliminate the possibility of adding trees to the boulevards.

One final note; Mr. Neirinck stated that the Canadian Standard book was the TAC publication "Geometric Design Guide for Canadian Roads". Directly from the latest version of said publication: "Design speed choice should reflect the 85th percentile desired speed." What this says to me is that the City desires people to travel 10km/h above the posted legal speed limit, a desire for which I do not share.

Instead of making the road safer by making the street more forgiving we should be looking at designing the road to force people to travel slightly slower. Unlike forgiving design standards, this practice actually create safer situations and costs a lot less money.

I am hoping that my concerns do not fall on deaf ears as both traffic safety and financial prudence are important issues.

Cheers, and thanks again for your time,
Steve Snyder

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

The round-about at Sun Valley and Gateway is getting built starting in spring. Think this was talked about a while back.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/publicworks/M...ut/default.asp



http://www.winnipeg.ca/publicworks/M...ss/default.asp

Good news on the roundabout at SunValley and Gateway, should have been built when they extended the CP Trail. What's surprising about the roundabout at Grassie and Molson is not how well it works but the fact that Winnipeg motorists actually seem to know how to use it!

[bomberjet]

I actually agree with you on that point at this location Steve. They should design the underpass for 60 km/h, no more. Doesn't need to be a freeway, since speeds are at 60km/h on the north end. Do they plan on somehow routing Sterling Lyon through there in the future, to run down Grant to Pembina, possibly. But we all know nothing like that would ever happen around here.

[1ajs]

holy crap kenitston goes to the permiter :O that sure sped up my drive to west broadway..

came up from rosenort on the 330 witch has a new set of lights at the perimiter waiting to be turned on when did all this happen?

[mattpa]

part of manitobas highway renewal 3 years ago they promised a diamond interchange be completed by 2015 at 330 lol they changed that for lights i love our government mit should drive the vehicles on par to the infrastructure

[esquire]

Originally Posted by steveosnyder

As everyone here more than likely knows, I have an opinion on this -- just sent an email to the areas councillor and his EA...

That's a good point. The city does tend to overbuild grade separations... they look like wannabe-freeway segments dropped into place as opposed to regular city streets the way that older, pre-1960s under/overpasses do. The planned Marion/Archibald monstrosity is going to take that line of thinking to the next level.

[steveosnyder]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

I actually agree with you on that point at this location Steve. They should design the underpass for 60 km/h, no more. Doesn't need to be a freeway, since speeds are at 60km/h on the north end. Do they plan on somehow routing Sterling Lyon through there in the future, to run down Grant to Pembina, possibly. But we all know nothing like that would ever happen around here.

That's a first

[Simplicity]

Seems to me the objective is to give people the feeling of safety so they can more quickly clear the intersections going west to south and north to east. Kind of like how the Kenaston underpass works. People really hammer the gas the moment they cross Taylor.

Whether that's effective, who knows. But I like the idea they're planning for 10km/h over the speed limit because god knows everybody drives a little slower through the old underpasses like Higgins and Main...

[rypinion]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Seems to me the objective is to give people the feeling of safety so they can more quickly clear the intersections going west to south and north to east. Kind of like how the Kenaston underpass works. People really hammer the gas the moment they cross Taylor.

Whether that's effective, who knows. But I like the idea they're planning for 10km/h over the speed limit because god knows everybody drives a little slower through the old underpasses like Higgins and Main...

Steve's point is that the fact that they plan for 10 over is exactly what causes people to drive 10 over. Speed limits should be "enforced" by the geometry of the street in concert with the posted speed limit.

[steveosnyder]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Seems to me the objective is to give people the feeling of safety so they can more quickly clear the intersections going west to south and north to east. Kind of like how the Kenaston underpass works. People really hammer the gas the moment they cross Taylor.

Whether that's effective, who knows. But I like the idea they're planning for 10km/h over the speed limit because god knows everybody drives a little slower through the old underpasses like Higgins and Main...

Originally Posted by rypinion

Steve's point is that the fact that they plan for 10 over is exactly what causes people to drive 10 over. Speed limits should be "enforced" by the geometry of the street in concert with the posted speed limit.

Honestly I don't think this is going to make much of a difference which way they go; either increase the speed limit or decrease the design speed. Accidents happen the most when there is disparity between the speeds of vehicles -- so when one car is going the posted speed limit and one is going the intended speed you actually increase the probability of an accident.

What really concerns me is the email reply I originally got from the City P.Eng.

It is normal engineering practice to design the geometry of the road to a higher design speed than the posted legal speed to ensure roadway safety. Designs are always undertaken to include an additional factor of safety.

It is not done to consider an increased future speed on the roadway.

So they design it faster to be safer, and actually say that they don't intend to increase the speed. I asked him to cite proof that a design speed higher than the posted limit is safer, but he hasn't given any, which is understandable since every publication I've ever read on the subject says it doesn't.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by rypinion

Steve's point is that the fact that they plan for 10 over is exactly what causes people to drive 10 over. Speed limits should be "enforced" by the geometry of the street in concert with the posted speed limit.

Another way to control speed would be to hang logging chains from the underpass, forcing drivers to slow down to avoid chains going through the windsheilds. But I doubt any engineer would sign off on this scheme either.

So an underpass geometry is designed to limit speed to a given rate. If those rates are exceeded, collisions, and likely some deaths occur. How many deaths are acceptable?

See the engineer's logic here? By designing the roadway for the speed limit + X%, the city removes liability.

Safety factors are used across the board in every single branch of engineering. Every engineer is trained to use established safety factors. To not do so would be considered irresponsible and would surely result in dicipline.

[bomberjet]

When the design speed and posted speed of a roadway are the same, say 100 km/h, somebody driving 100 km/h is going to constantly be right on the edge of unsafe driving conditions. For example, you're driving along a wide sweeping curve doing 100, you're trying to maintain your position on the road. But you're constantly in that uncomfortable feeling of your vehicle flying off the roadway. One bump in the road or hand slip on the wheel, and you're done.

Designing 10 km/h more eliminates this. People travelling over the legal speed limit are breaking the law and shouldn't be doing so. You can never control every factor in the world. Human error causing crashes is an uncontrollable risk. Some yahoo comes flying down the road doing 140, you cant control that no matter what you do. Those are the people on the news who's car flipped over and ejected them from the vehicle.

Hampering the safe driving of 99.99% of the population for the 0.01%, I think is wrong. I agree with designing higher than posted speed.

[esquire]

^ Old under/overpasses like McPhillips and Logan, Main and Higgins, Osborne and the transitway are not designed like mini-freeways with huge buffers for driver error yet people for the most part manage to navigate them on a daily basis without death and carnage resulting. I think it would be the same with Waverley.

[Riverman]

I used to work with a very straightforward and talented engineer from Liverpool. His answer to Steve's question would be "Because it's wrong."

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Old under/overpasses like McPhillips and Logan, Main and Higgins, Osborne and the transitway are not designed like mini-freeways with huge buffers for driver error yet people for the most part manage to navigate them on a daily basis without death and carnage resulting. I think it would be the same with Waverley.

Standards change, codes change, for the better. Lots of houses with knob and tube wiring too!

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Old under/overpasses like McPhillips and Logan, Main and Higgins, Osborne and the transitway are not designed like mini-freeways with huge buffers for driver error yet people for the most part manage to navigate them on a daily basis without death and carnage resulting. I think it would be the same with Waverley.

But why? Vehicles back then also ensured total carnage should somebody be in an accident, but we've managed to engineer beyond and around that. The idea that small margins for error create a certain moral hazard is only really true in theory.

[bomberjet]

For driving 60 km/h, like at Waverley, Main St or other low speeds, I can handle designing to posted speed. Really if you're travelling straight doing 60, you should be able to handle most situations that arise. There shouldn't be kids playing at the bottom of an underpass. Again, can't design for every single situation, or else nothing would get built.

But for anything with curvature, or higher speed for sightlines, I can not. Sightlines sounds like such a cop out reason, say at Waverley that was a reason for flatter approach gradients. But if you're doing 100 and cant see a car stopped at the bottom of an underpass you're approaching, that's dangerous.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Standards change, codes change, for the better. Lots of houses with knob and tube wiring too!

Certain changes in traffic engineering have definitely not been for the better. Most obvious is the tendency to include yield lanes at urban intersections so people can turn right without stopping. I'm not talking about the Kenaston and McGillivray type stroad junctions... I mean urban intersections like Main and York, Main and Higgins, River and Osborne, etc. These are quite dangerous for pedestrians to navigate.

It's clear that traffic engineers value traffic flow over efficient land use and pedestrian safety. I don't see why we should settle for that - again, at least in areas that are urban in character.