What Winnipeg Really Needs

What Winnipeg City really needs is leadership from our politicians, Municipal, Provincial and Federal. The Waverley West controversy, Kenaston underpass, Centre city re-development, Transit and a miriad of other issues are all tied together. All have simple and elegant solutions but those solutions cannot be found in individual or piecemeal planning. Neither can they be found by consulting the building community which is a dinosaur from the last century’s so-called economic "growth" misconception..

If we work from the most recent symptom Waverley West we can easily find the solution. In consulting the builders, it is clear that Winnipeg needs more land upon which to supply housing for our expanding population. At the same time there is a crisis in Transit, because our existing roads cannot handle the growing traffic from the residential suburbs. Obviously if the land could be found near downtown both situations would be improved! and the rejuvenation of the centre city would also get a huge boost..

Contributing to all the traffic problems in Winnipeg is the fact that one cannot travel any distance without having to traverse rail lines ( e.g. Kenaston!) which in conjunction with rail yards, have created a multitude of barriers and impediments of all sorts of traffic - pedestrian, bicycles and vehicular. Of course the costs of eliminating any of these barriers is beyond any possibility of successful solution as the Kenaston underpass so aptly demonstrates- Millions of dollars for a so-called solution that will only re-locate the problems at Kenaston crossing to other intersections that already cannot handle the existing traffic.

So what the heck is the solution? So simple, but impeded by lack of leadership from our Municipal, Provincial, and Federal politicians who cannot and do not work for the benefit of the people but instead work for their masters...the dinosaurs from last century!

Not only is the solution simple but great politicians in the past have already discussed it many times.

Simply - rail-re-location (you know like what happened at The Forks but on a larger scale) would solve all the problems in one courageous political move. Cost of rail re-location (around the city ) is l MINUSCULE by comparison with any other conception - The land freed-up for development would be worth many times the cost of re-location; the right of ways freed-up would facilitate North America’s finest high-speed transit system; umpteen barriers to traffic flow would be removed all over town; the centre city would blossom. Imagine the impact of a huge residential development just north of the Health Sciences complex? Imagine a city where the existing suburbs are connected with the centre city by fantastic high-speed transit; where development is contained in the downtown for at least the next 60 years, where transportation alternatives other than the automobile are convenient and speedy

All this and a positive and fruitful future are up for grabs, but it will take leadership from our supposed leaders in the various governments. True leadership, or a serious uproar from the people who often think with much larger and clearer perspective than those politicians looking for short-term re-election, is the what Winnipeg needs.

Winnipeggers deserve enlightened, progressive leadership. Who will step-up to the plate and hit our home run?

Shane Nestruck
Winnipeg, MB