 Bold vision on rail lines could transform cityPolitical | 207987 hits | Aug 28 11:49 am | Posted by: Winnipegger  As a society, we are good at identifying and addressing problems. We just don�t solve them.... - Analysis - Winnipeg Free Press.Commentsview comments in forum Page 1 You need to be a member of CKA and be logged into the site, to comment on news. |
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A major issue of the day is environment and carbon emissions. Rail costs 1/3 the price per tonne per km vs highway trucks. Carbon emissions are far more dramatic. Both trucks and railway locomotives use diesel, but rail is far more efficient. If you want to reduce emissions, then get big rig trucks off the highways. Use rail instead. That could be intermodal, which transfers containers from rail to truck, then delivers the container to the big box store or whatever final destination via truck. But many industries still have rail deliver cargo directly.
This city has lost a lot of jobs due to stupid decisions. Residential housing was allowed to infiltrate the Saint Boniface industrial park, then residents complained about the smell from stock yards. Winnipeg used to process as may cattle per year as Calgary, and more hogs than Toronto. Winnipeg was the largest meat packing location in Canada. Until one day it was all shut down, thousands of people lost their jobs. A meat packing plant in North Dakota promised to process all the animals that used to go to Winnipeg. Then there was the mad cow scare; no Canadian animals were permitted. We lost Manitoba Sugar, more jobs lost and all the sugar beet farmers had no place to sell their produce. Furniture manufacture moved to Mexico, and textile manufacture moved overseas. We've lost entire industries. Now you want to destroy rail?
You realize if the CP is forced to move their rail yard, it won't just move outside the city. It will leave the province entirely, never to return. When CN was sold, most maintenance work was moved out of Transcona; some to Edmonton and some to Chicago. We already lost a lot of jobs with CN. We don't want to lose CP.
This appeared on a Facebook, a couple Manitoba Liberals are pushing this. These people make me feel I'm in the wrong party.
There is a growing gap between left wing and right wing parties. Instead of staying (mostly) true to centre, Liberals are trying to veer as hard to the left as the NDP do. There is no true centrist party anymore.
I submitted a letter to the editor yesterday:
A major issue of the day is environment and carbon emissions. Rail costs 1/3 the price per tonne per km vs highway trucks. Carbon emissions are far more dramatic. Both trucks and railway locomotives use diesel, but rail is far more efficient. If you want to reduce emissions, then get big rig trucks off the highways. Use rail instead. That could be intermodal, which transfers containers from rail to truck, then delivers the container to the big box store or whatever final destination via truck. But many industries still have rail deliver cargo directly.
This city has lost a lot of jobs due to stupid decisions. Residential housing was allowed to infiltrate the Saint Boniface industrial park, then residents complained about the smell from stock yards. Winnipeg used to process as may cattle per year as Calgary, and more hogs than Toronto. Winnipeg was the largest meat packing location in Canada. Until one day it was all shut down, thousands of people lost their jobs. A meat packing plant in North Dakota promised to process all the animals that used to go to Winnipeg. Then there was the mad cow scare; no Canadian animals were permitted. We lost Manitoba Sugar, more jobs lost and all the sugar beet farmers had no place to sell their produce. Furniture manufacture moved to Mexico, and textile manufacture moved overseas. We've lost entire industries. Now you want to destroy rail?
You realize if the CP is forced to move their rail yard, it won't just move outside the city. It will leave the province entirely, never to return. When CN was sold, most maintenance work was moved out of Transcona; some to Edmonton and some to Chicago. We already lost a lot of jobs with CN. We don't want to lose CP.
The fact is mere cities cannot force CP to do close/move their railyards, all they can do is offer incentives to move. CP was sold/granted that land by the Dominion 150 years ago and no city bylaw is going to change that fact.
The article has some merit however - the closure of CN's line from the NE to downtown allowed Edmonton to build an LRT along it, as well as shared use paths(pedestrian/cycling). CN & CP also closed down their downtown railyards a couple decades ago and most of the land has been cleaned up and now houses a university and a variety of retail/commercial sites.
CP is also in the process of moving their southside yards (Whyte Avenue to about Argyll Road) to outside the city limits and the City is drooling about the development possibilities of the land.
CP moved their downtown yard so many decades ago that I had to look up a history website to find when they shut it down. That rail yard was shut down in 1923. In 1989 it was converted into trendy market, town square, park, marina. The rail yards we have today were built outside the city, but the city grew to the rail yards.
Someone is fucking you people dry and you're not questioning the obvious corruption behind these horrificly overstated costs?
Never mind the railyards, you people have far greater problems.
FYI: This new bridge over the American River cost US$38,000,000.00
Someone is fucking you people dry and you're not questioning the obvious corruption behind these horrificly overstated costs?
Never mind the railyards, you people have far greater problems.
Yup. I question whether the Arlington Street bridge needs to be replaced at all. It was built in 1909, a steel truss bridge, and has very steep ramps up and down. To prevent cars sliding down in winter when it's icy, a street light is installed just before the down ramp, coordinated with the intersection at the bottom. It works.
History records taxpayers in 1909 rejected plans twice before they came up with an affordable plan. History repeats.
Under current California standards that means you could replace the bridge quickly and for around US$100 million to US$150 million.
http://www.dot.ca.gov/des/techpubs/manu ... /bdp-9.pdf
Just to be clear, does that price include the full length? Including approaches, from intersection to intersection, it's 700m long. From the first street it must pass over to the last rail line, it's 400m.
From one end of the structure to another I measure 638 meters (2100 feet).
With four lanes and a generous sidewalk on each side that's going to be 70 feet wide.
That makes for a structure with 147,000sf and the median cost in 2016 for these things in California is US$195 per sf.
That's a structure-only cost of $28,665,000.00 using a simple plate and girder span.
Removal of the current structure, site prep, mitigation of the site to permit trains to operate during construction, and the odd bribe and we're in the $100m to $150m range.