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  #401  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2017, 8:24 PM
Wolf13 Wolf13 is offline
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Because I simply can't keep up with you quick people, another... *drumroll* MULTIPOST... *minimmal excitement*

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Originally Posted by rrskylar View Post
So people can't walk one block over to cross Portage?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban recluse View Post
But why should they?
This. Having the borders up is the status quo, so I get the inclination to defend it, but it's only the status quo for this. one. intersection.

So really, can't we just acclimate to the reality shared by 99% of our other intersections? Without borders?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluenote View Post
And why should us taxpayers have to pay for them to NOT walk one block to cross?

Issues that seem to be fake news to some but are actually real.

1- it WILL make traffic a lot worse. I see posts in other threads her of some of you bitching about how long it takes now.

2- it WILL mess up transit and cost us tax payers more.

3- it WILL cost a lot of money seeing that those barricades are structural. Yet that weasel Mayer forgot to look into that before he pledged his little pipe dream.

4- the mall under it will die a slow death. But hey. You don't care as you don't see it.

5- it's still dangerous. Stop telling me it's the same as crossing a block down. It isn't. No where is there all the crazy lights and turns and the traffic load that this intersection has. And tiny little islands to stand on. Sure you can make them wider. That should improve traffic right ......

What's so exciting across the street ? Offices. I'm going to for sure head down there for the exciting offices.

Build it and they will come. Lol. Ummmm the Richardsons towers was there before the barricades went up. And guess what. It looks the same today. No store fronts as you dream of.

When the barricade went up. It was a totally different era. And totally different buildings that had small offices and stores and whatnot. It's just 3 big towers now. It's a different beast.

People will use it to get to the forks? Well they can walk a block. Plus not one really takes this route to the forks anyway. There are much better routes in place now.

They will flock to the museum through Portage and Main. Ok. Like any of you flock to it now right.

Baseball games. Oh come on. You all drive to them.

It will becomes Times Square. Ok. I think we heard this pitch before. We got one screen.

It will spur a new hotel in that gravel parking lot. Kinda like how it took 30 years to get Pad B built and that isn't even started yet.



Let's be real. This city has much bigger issues then a pet project. This money can be spent on better mass transit. Better signage. Renovate the underground walkway. Renovated the entrances to it. Lighting in the area. These will be a bigger boost then some office worker crossing the street at 5pm.
1. No, traffic won't get a lot worse. Besides, traffic through P+M is RAPID compared to "biggest intersections" in smaller cities. We have many worse intersections for traffic, and if any has some seconds to give, then it's this one.

2. I staunchly hate taxes and the cost here is minimal. If anything, the cost here should be higher to actually MAKE something of the place rather than just remove the barricades.

3. Mayor is a major weasel, but the increased economic and social vitality of downtown, while un-quantifiable, has an equally un-quantifiably higher ceiling than before.

The problem with Winnipeg is it constantly gets in its own way! we are leaving something in our downtown development's way... the benefits exceed the tax cost strongly

4. The mall won't die. First off, we have 2, maybe three mega-developments connected to the walkway system. It's still winter half the year, and a major draw in all of those places are the banks and food, which you always need anyway if you work in those towers.

Yes, they could take a hit in passive traffic... if downtown doesn't grow. This should remove a barrier to economic activity downtown, which increases traffic. If mall traffic goes down as a percentage but downtown pedestrian traffic goes up as a number, it may not sink much at all, and stand the chance to climb again.

Toronto and Vancouver walkways and underground passageways are packed despite mild weather and no barricades.

5. If we all give our heads a shake and decide, collectively, to reach the bare minimal requirments to cognitively operate a motorized vehicle, then this shouldn't be a challenge. Millions of more dangerous intersections in the world, probably hundreds more in Canada.

6. Re - Richardsons - You're not getting it... in 40 years it had NO CHANCE TO GROW. After Richardsons came THREE more towers, you don't think a few storefronts couldn't have sprung up? Of course they could have, but that was decided against with the barricades. It was a different time back then, it was the 70's... except P+M is thus still in the 70's

7. Tons of people park at P+M and walk to the games. Half the spectators go to games from work.

8. It won't become Times Square, but that's like locking a horse in a stable claiming "because you'll never win the derby"... Maybe it will atleast jump over a log or something, let's give it its best shot.

9. The money needed for this isn't nearly enough to help mass transit.

Quote:
Originally Posted by trueviking View Post
People should be able to cross the street. It's as simple as that. The goals don't have to be any loftier to make it worth it.
Theoretically... there is only one valid reason to keep the barricades up (and I'm sure you agree):

It is legally required through binding agreement with the landlords. It makes sense why Trizec wanted it, but not why the City caved into that without legally requiring the second tower.

All the landlords are ready to cooperate, and technically, that's all that matters. It shows that a) they believe there can be a positive trend in our downtown livelihood, and b) that they don't want to be the bad guy, the want to be the good guy.

So if the "big bad corporations", previously the drivers behind the barricade construction, can be the good guys, why can't little friendly Manitobans?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway View Post
Newsflash: Pedestrians pay taxes too!

Why should us taxpayers who don't live in the north of the city subsidize the Peguis expansion? Why should us taxpayers who don't live in the south of the city pay for the Waverley underpass or the Kenaston widening?

Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire View Post
I doubt the trivial amount of congestion that opening up Portage and Main is likely to generate will send anyone fleeing for suburbia... at least, not on its own.

But that said, if someone is that bothered by having to wait an extra 30 seconds at a red light, I'm guessing they'll probably reroute their commute to get them around Portage and Main. It's not exactly unavoidable.
It would bother the hell out of me, but not at P+M. We keep talking about P+M as if it IS something... if it is something noteworthy, then for that one intersection, sure, 30 seconds is fine.
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  #402  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2017, 8:38 PM
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Roger Strong Roger Strong is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Riverman View Post
I live closer to Portage and Main than most of you and having to use Main during rush hour is a bear. Usually 6-10 light cycles to get past Main from Higgins.
That's only an additional 36 - 60 minutes. Or an additional 150-250 hours per year. Plus fuel costs. And the health cost of an additional 150-250 hours a year in a sea of stop-start gas & diesel traffic.

But people will have an extra option on how to cross from one bank to another!
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  #403  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2017, 8:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Strong View Post
That's only an additional 36 - 60 minutes. Or an additional 150-250 hours per year. Plus fuel costs. And the health cost of an additional 150-250 hours a year in a sea of stop-start gas & diesel traffic.

But people will have an extra option on how to cross from one bank to another!
Are you seriously suggesting that opening Portage and Main to pedestrians will add 36-60 minutes to commute times per day?

At this point why hold back... you might as well claim that opening Portage and Main to pedestrians will also trigger a Russian attack that will leave us all dead. I mean, both scenarios are about as realistic.
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  #404  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2017, 9:07 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire View Post
Are you seriously suggesting that opening Portage and Main to pedestrians will add 36-60 minutes to commute times per day?
Whoops. An extra 6-10 minutes. (Your additional one minute per light cycle times Riverman's average 6-10 cycles per commute.) I got it mixed up with another calculation.

Sorry.
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  #405  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2017, 9:34 PM
Wolf13 Wolf13 is offline
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I work downtown and cross Portage and Main every day, often during less than ideal hours. Several times.

I can't see it adding more than 3 minutes to my commute.

Hell, if a scramble doesn't work, maybe a conventional crossing can work. Considering you can't turn left west, north, or southbound, right on a red anywhere (I think), etc... there are ways to make this happen without slowing as many drivers as at most true 4-way intersections.

There is one day it could be bad... Jets games. I don't know why there would be many pedestrians out, but it's already horrible with cars so that won't improve...
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  #406  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2017, 9:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire View Post
A typical sidewalk to sidewalk crossing on Portage or on Main is 110 feet. I see plenty of older folks easily crossing in the amount of time the lights give you (45 seconds?). How would extending that crossing to 180 feet suddenly make it unduly difficult, especially if the crossing time is extended?

If a person really has a hard time with mobility, it seems to me that they would have the option of 60 seconds to get across Main, and then again another 60 seconds to get across Portage... in other words, crossing Portage and Main the same way one would cross any other intersection in town. Considering the many elevators and ramps involved with the underground concourse, crossing on the surface would probably be a time saver regardless of any mobility issues one might have.
I just think it's a bit strange that we've gone from a debate about whether to open the intersection at all to whether to install a "scramble crossing" as well. I think the first proposition is already, at best, marginally feasible from both safety and traffic-flow perspectives. The second sounds like it has to be a bit of psychological "priming", i.e. get everyone mad at the scramble and then present the ordinary crossing as a "reasonable compromise".

I just can't see how, from a liability or common sense perspective, the city can risk having people potentially stranded and panicking in the middle of the P&M intersection (e.g. in January, when visibility is already not great) in the midst of morning rush hour. Maybe on a sunny Sunday afternoon in June it would be kind of cute (not the panicking pedestrians, but the scramble idea) but I'm not getting the impression that the proponents are accepting any sort of limitation.
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  #407  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2017, 9:49 PM
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^ Personally, I'm not hung up on the scramble. There are engineers who know that sort of thing inside and out and I'd leave it up to them to study the issue and decide what's best. But regardless of whether it ends up being a scramble or an ordinary crossing or some other variant, I have a hard time believing that adding one more intersection with pedestrians to a typical commute that might involve anywhere from 10-40 other such intersections with pedestrian crossings will make any appreciable difference.
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  #408  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2017, 11:00 PM
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Well, when they put the barricades up in the first place, the boast for years afterward was that doing so had "virtually eliminated the 5 o'clock traffic jam at Portage & Main". I don't recall anyone questioning that, although I wasn't old enough to drive until a few years later so, for all I know firsthand, maybe it was just hyperbole. Nonetheless, it does suggest that some people believed, on the basis of direct experience, that it makes a big difference whether you significantly impede traffic flow at the key choke-point intersection of the city.

Anyway, I would be glad to be proven wrong on this, since it would be neat to cross there. I can't actually ever remember crossing there or even being around Portage and Main in the 70s. We were often downtown, but "downtown" was Eaton's to the Bay and not really anything else. The rest of it was just an endless procession of grimy, drab old office buildings -- with the Richardson Building and a couple of other new ones the shining beacons of hope for a better future. Odd how impressions reverse themselves!
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  #409  
Old Posted Mar 29, 2017, 2:38 PM
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I cant wait for this to open. Media will search out all the people (and re-tweet) the ones who are stuck in traffic, stranded and left for dead at the side of the road. It will be deemed a failure.

Within about three weeks, it will vastly improve but the media wont care.

This is what happened with IGF.

Jokes aside, this should be good. I avoid driving through there at rush hour anyway. But pedestrians crossing wont make be avoid it anymore. if I must, I must. Whats the big deal?
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  #410  
Old Posted Mar 29, 2017, 3:14 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unknown Poster View Post
I cant wait for this to open. Media will search out all the people (and re-tweet) the ones who are stuck in traffic, stranded and left for dead at the side of the road. It will be deemed a failure.

Within about three weeks, it will vastly improve but the media wont care.

This is what happened with IGF.
Haha. Bang on.
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  #411  
Old Posted Mar 29, 2017, 5:12 PM
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They should bring back the policeman in the bobby's hat who used to direct traffic from the centre of the intersection in the 1920s (or descendant thereof). Get rid of the traffic lights, hire some urchins to wander around the intersection, and maybe throw in some runaway chickens from North End backyards, the odd mutt or two, a donkey-cart with a painted advertisement for liver pills, and sell it all as a tourist attraction.
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  #412  
Old Posted Mar 29, 2017, 5:15 PM
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Originally Posted by Andy6 View Post
some urchins to wander around the intersection
You can bank on this part happening, the rest is anyone's guess.
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  #413  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 7:39 PM
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Brian Bowman says BMO, the final P&M reopening holdout has signed on to support a future plan. per verified @bkives twitter
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  #414  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 7:41 PM
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^ I wonder why BMO held out? They probably have less to lose than any other player in all of this. Their building has next to no underground presence.
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  #415  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2017, 9:28 PM
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From the Sun: Bowman

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“If you go to the underground of Portage and Main and you walk under there, it needs some TLC,” he said. “We are not putting our best foot forward for tourists and people that use the underground. You look at the Portage and Main area, in terms of just the street at grade, there’s busted curbs, it’s not inspiring. So that intersection can do a lot more for us but it goes well beyond simply moving pedestrians across the street.”
Thank you! Make this intersection truly amazing.
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  #416  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2017, 10:21 PM
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If those words go beyond lip service I'll actually high five our dumb mayor!
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  #417  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2017, 10:26 PM
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If those words go beyond lip service I'll actually high five our dumb mayor!
I'm willing to do more haha.
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  #418  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2017, 10:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Strong View Post
That's only an additional 36 - 60 minutes. Or an additional 150-250 hours per year. Plus fuel costs. And the health cost of an additional 150-250 hours a year in a sea of stop-start gas & diesel traffic.

But people will have an extra option on how to cross from one bank to another!
Some like us get it a small vocal minority that want P & M opened for selfish reasons don't!
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  #419  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2017, 11:28 PM
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Lets close all pedestrian traffic down all over the city! Think of the time that could be saved.
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  #420  
Old Posted Apr 28, 2017, 1:39 AM
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Lets close all pedestrian traffic down all over the city! Think of the time that could be saved.
Agreed! But it's not really a novel idea. All the worlds greatest cities have downtown intersections restricted to cars only. Free flowing traffic creates vibrant livable cities.
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