Council poised to finally kill $566M Marion megaproject
Bartley Kives | CBC News | Posted: November 16, 2016 11:00 AM | Last Updated: November 16, 2016
Cancellation of unpopular widening and underpass coming at today's council meeting
After two months with their fingers sitting on the trigger, city council intends to put a bullet in the Marion Street widening today.
The $566-million transportation project is destined to die at the November meeting of council, the victim of being judged too expensive for the city and too disruptive for St. Boniface.
"Maybe the best-laid plans of mice and men: We thought we needed to go in a certain direction and we now know that the project the transportation folks had in mind was not viable, both because of cost and because of community feedback," St. Boniface Coun. Matt Allard said Tuesday.
The project called for an underpass at Archibald Street and the rail line to the east, as well as onramps and offramps that would have resulted in expropriations. Council will consider a plan today to ask consulting firm MMM Group to come up with a list of less expensive and disruptive alternatives, at a cost of $200,000.
Some St. Boniface residents argue MMM didn't do a good enough job at community consultation when it worked on the now-doomed $566-million plan and they want the city to award the work to another firm. Council's public works committee deemed that prospect too expensive last week — and Allard agrees.
"If we go back to a [request for proposal] process, we don't know what's going to come back," he said. "Were MMM not to bid, we'd likely have to pay much, much more for a new consultant and we'd also be looking at delays."
Here's what else is on council's agenda today:
Making room for transit
In 2015, Winnipeg Transit suffered a major service disruption because too many buses had broken down. Part of the problem was insufficient space to conduct repairs.
Now, council will consider a plan to expand Winnipeg Transit's Fort Rouge garage to allow mechanics more room to manoeuvre.
The catch: The $53-million project may not be finished in time to qualify for funding from the Trudeau government.
Council will also consider a $345,000 settlement for the expropriation of a Parker neighbourhood home in the way of the second phase of the Southwest Transitway.
Honouring a former mayor
During her six-year reign as Winnipeg's mayor in the 1990s, Susan Thompson oversaw a governmental restructuring that increased the power of the elected officials at the expense of public servants who work across the courtyard at city hall.
In what amounts to an ironic honour, city hall's administration building, where senior public servants work, may forever bear Thompson's name.
City council will consider a plan to rename the tower after the only woman to ever serve as Winnipeg's mayor. Council speaker Devi Sharma (Old Kildonan) came up with the idea.
More frequent fire inspections
The death of two people in a North Point Douglas rooming-house fire has led to changes for the fire-paramedic service.
Council is poised to approve a new policy that will see fire inspectors make annual visits to rooming houses that have shared washrooms or kitchens.
The fire-paramedic service deems the shared facilities riskier than converted dwellings with self-contained units.
Let's make a pair of deals
If you're a tech-savvy motorist who likes to make a game of beating rush-hour traffic, you may soon have a new, improved toy. Winnipeg is one council vote away from approving a deal to share traffic information with Google, which in turn would enable its Waze app to function more efficiently.
Council will also consider a deal that may result in some form of use for downtown's former Canada Post tower, which the city purchased as part of the police-headquarters project.
That tower is empty and costing the city millions of dollars a year in maintenance and lost rent. Pending today's vote, Winnipeg's Shelter Canadian Properties will get a crack at devising a redevelopment plan.