Is Winnipeg Soulless?

As usual Winnipeg is bogged down in controversy. Why do we need BRT? Why do we need a new stadium? Why do we need a Human Rights Museum? Why do we need a better zoo? Why do we need Bears on Broadway. Why do we need more high rise apartments in my neighborhood? Why do we need Ikea?

I don't want THAT in my back yard. Who needs art? Why should we spend money subsidizing education? Why should the city spend money on THAT development?

When did Winnipeg become such a negative place? We might well be the most unimaginative metropolis in Canada. We seem to be satisfied with the status quo.

Perhaps that is what we prefer: never-ending bitching about how bad off we are. But any time something new and creative comes our way we say absolutely not. It's ugly. It costs too much.

Previous generations of politicians at every level have spent our tax dollars like drunken sailors leaving us with a massive infrastructure deficit. Generations of piss poor civic planning in Winnipeg have left us with a real dog's breakfast of poorly maintained streets and traffic lights and sprawl. Add in a government that believes more bureaucracy is the only way to go.

Now we have to fix it. Unfortunately that fix is not inexpensive. We also have to keep living. Too many think that if we just stop spending everything will be better. Maybe, but not so much when we talk about cities. Winnipeg will not grow and prosper if we cannot provide balance. To me balance includes:
* generous social programs and training, taking care of the less privileged, helping them to become contributing citizens
* competent planning and quality infrastructure management and execution
* intelligent transit development
* then there are the intangibles that make a city warm and welcoming: trees and art and sport and culture and learning and food...

Nothing will get done properly in a vacuum. We need a real vision followed by a plan and excellent execution of the plan. That is not available in Winnipeg today. But if it were we don't seem to have the will to do it.

I have a dream of what I'd like Winnipeg to become. I have a passion for Winnipeg that allows me precious little patience for all the negativity, the naysayers and nimbiers that seem to dominate this fair burgh. We second and third guess absolutely everything.

Some will argue reality gets in the way of one's dream. True. But we do treat ourselves from time to time. Maybe splurge on a new jacket. Buy that car we've always wanted. Renovate the kitchen. Small things that are maybe a little more than we can afford but they form part of our fabric of life.

That is what museums and football stadiums and parks and art mean to a city. They also mean different things to different people. I believe we have to provide a myriad of treats for everyone to become a city that is more than mere bricks and mortar.

Or we can stop building anything that might not be necessary for the next 20-40 years while we balance the books and make our roads the envy of the country. But we might well end up a city without soul.

I don't want to live in that city.

Building Winnipeg to meet the lowest common denominator

Winnipeg has been slow to evolve. Slow and steady is the mantra of citizens and politicians alike. It seems that should someone come up with an innovative, never before done in Winnipeg idea, many Winnipeggers nix it even before the ink is dry on the proposal.

I wonder what it is with us Winnipeggers that drives us to shun progress with such vigour rarely displayed elsewhere.

Several good examples of late include the Human Rights Museum, the South Point Douglas/Stadium proposal, the Polo Park Stadium proposal, the Canad Inns Water Park proposal, the Assiniboine Avenue condo project...

The whining about not having these things is incredible. And yet the volume against those innovative proposals is deafening. For so many reasons. Especially the use of taxpayer money. What astounds me is the number of people who nix these proposals because they are not fully accessible by everybody.

While I believe it would be wonderful for everyone to enjoy equal access to everything, that is not the way the world works. What we get when we build to accommodate the lowest possible denominator is what we have now with many public amenities. Swimming pools and community centres are a couple prime examples. Vanilla.

Many people want other flavours. The trouble is with public amenities we cannot (or will not) afford chocolate or strawberry flavours. And the vanilla flavours are often under-used.

The proposal to redevelop Winnipeg's South Point Douglas area is a prime example. This is a part of Winnipeg that has been allowed to deteriorate to the extreme. Here is a tract of land on the banks of the Red River that is almost completely undeveloped, with little more than one or two dozen ramshackle, run down houses and some modest commercial properties.

Along comes the Aspers with a pretty neat proposal to fully develop that area. Beautiful new water park, retail development on the banks of the River and a $150 million football stadium. Nope, we don't want that here. Save the houses. Some even say we need to save the unaffected neighboring houses: can't have that, the taxes will go up.

Unfriggenbelievable.

The negative-naysayers of this city better give their collective heads a shake. And soon. What these whiners seem to ignore is the fact we don't have a whole lot of people knocking down our doors with fistfuls of loot looking to develop this burgh.

And don't whine 20 years from now at the snail-like pace of development in Winnipeg. We've had a chance to get what others have and we cavalierly waved them away.

Oh, and don't bother rebutting this post here. I see too much of that elsewhere.

A Disturbing Awareness

I've been reading, with alarming regularity, about the deterioration of City of Winnipeg services.

The most curious to be sure concerns the offloading of contracting city services to the average citizen. It seems a homeowner had a rather unfortunate sewer incident. Reportedly his sewer line and the city main trunk parted ways, roughly in the middle of the street in front of his house.

Even the most cynical will not believe what happened next. You see, even though the failure was on city property, and was no doubt the city's responsibility, the city did not view it that way.

Here is what happened. Keep in mind, this is city property.

• Homeowner obtains independent proof the failure is city responsibility.
• Homeowner convinces city bureaucrat that the failure is city responsibility while forced through hoops by bureaucrat.
• Note, zero sense of urgency on city behalf. Homeowner without use of water and toilets in own home for several DAYS.
  
• Homeowner obtains quotes from MULTIPLE City of Winnipeg approved sewer contractors to repair failure under the street.
• Homeowner selects contractor and PAYS for work to be done.
• After two weeks and seriously out of pocket, sewer is repaired.

Now you're probably thinking I'm making this up. Nope. Wish I were.

We hear all the time how the feds dump responsibilities on the provinces. And the provinces on municipalities.

Now it appears municipalities are downloading city services on rate-paying citizens. I can't imagine how city officials can possibly justify this. It seems incredulous.

Even under the most fortuitous circumstances citizens acting as purchasing agents, project managers and/or general contractors is a disaster waiting to happen.

The city is expected to hire people with the experience and the education to handle such things. They know what to look for. The tricks of the trade if you will. They should be capable of acting quickly, correctly identify the problem. Choose a qualified contractor. Pay for the services. FIX THE PROBLEM.

Remember City of Winnipeg bureaucrats, you get what you pay for.

Get your act together.

Is Rapid Transit Viable in Winnipeg?

Last week I had a spirited debate with a couple other posters on a CBC Winnipeg blog. It had been implied I was not in favour of rapid transit. One even suggested I was happy living in a sleepy backwater. This is an edited version of my reply post.

I have never suggested we don’t need rapid transit. In fact, I said I’d love it and I would like to see a plan to built it. I merely posed a question asking if we NEED rapid transit TODAY. Some think we do. I simply don’t know, I’m just not sure.

I suggested that perhaps we don’t have the traffic density of larger cities and regions for comparison purposes. Many in Winnipeg suggest that if other cities can do it we can do it. I personally believe comparing Winnipeg to European or even North Dakota centres is a fruitless exercise. Saying so should not imply I believe Winnipeg is a sleepy back-water. Quite the contrary.

The real issue with traffic movement in Winnipeg is that Winnipeg planners must believe the solution to all traffic problems is to put up yet another set of traffic lights. Kenaston near the power centres is a perfect example of poor planning and short-sighted thinking. FYI, ALL the monies collected via gasoline taxes should be given to the municipalities to fix their roads and bridges.

Winnipeg IS a small city, comparatively speaking, though I do wish we’d think more progressively. I’ve railed for years about the lack of forethought by city planners and their seeming avoidance of a system of freeways and express routes here. I think I read last year that the city abandoned any plans for such a network. That can’t be good!

More on traffic planning in another post.

The US cities of Grand Forks and Fargo, North Dakota do a great job on their infrastructure. My understanding is the US Federal Government and the States provide substantially greater infrastructure capital to municipalities then do the Federal and Provincial Governments in Canada. Couple thoughts for your consideration: 1) public transit is significantly subsidized by Uncle Sam (the Feds). Not so in Canada. And b) regarding domed stadia in those centres, they were paid by the taxpayer but they raised the capital via a specific tax levy voted on by a specific plebiscite. Something our politicos seem reluctant to do.

Now on the subject of urban density, North Dakota has a total mass of 186,272 square kilometres and has a population roughly half that of Manitoba, representing a density of 3.592/km². Manitoba has more than 3.5 times the mass and a density of almost one half. (1)

1) Figures gleaned from Wikipedia.