City spending $700K in repairs 6 years after opening Southwest Transitway
Work is all part of planned maintenance on the bus route: Winnipeg Transit
The City of Winnipeg is still building the second phase of the Southwest Transitway, but a portion of phase one already needs $700,000 in repairs.
Alissa Clark, spokesperson for Winnipeg Transit, said in an email the city needs to do both partial and full-depth repairs to concrete between Queen Elizabeth Way and Jubilee Avenue. The city declined a request for an interview.
Maintenance work on the six-year-old line was planned under the Public Works pavement preservation program, Clark said.
"Pavement defects can and do occur on new pavements shortly after installation," she wrote. "These repairs are normal preservation activities that are undertaken to ensure the defects do not get larger or negatively impact the pavement lifecycle and transit operations."
The city is also doing "diamond grinding" along the transit route to prevent "pavement failures associated with surface imperfections," Clark said. The measure removes a thin layer of the concrete using diamond saw blades that smooth over bumps and other imperfections and improve skid resistance.
Done by September
The work, awarded to Maple Leaf Construction, began on Monday and is expected to be completed by the September long weekend, she said.
The section from Queen Elizabeth Way to Harkness Station is expected to be finished by Friday, when normal service from Main Street will resume.
The $138-million Southwest Transitway, which opened in April 2012, runs between Queen Elizabeth Way near The Forks and Jubilee Avenue near Pembina Highway.
The second phase of the project, between Jubilee Avenue and Markham Road, is slated to be completed in 2020 at a cost of $467 million.
