Discussions

I've said this for well over a year (and I'll say it once again) that this project is going to look stupid for generations to come when it's all done, just to save a buck. Yes people, instead of the tried and trued results from the bridges over the river, both on Eighteenth and First to be building one bridge at a time... They're doing both at once. Highways and Manitoba Infrastructure has decided that it's cheaper and easier not to build just one bridge first beside the existing and wait to remove and replace it with a second, once the first is complete and operational to keep the flow of traffic moving. I don't need the lecture on how money and time can be saved by having the contract fulfilled by doing both the North & Southbound structures at once. I get it, the bridges are there to serve a purpose and a function, aesthetics is irrelevant. But come on... This "swoop" in the road will look ridiculous and is completely avoidable. So what's going in the place of the bridge sitting there, right now? ...Trees and grass? Christ! At least put the pedestrian bridge there, so Highways doesn't need to allocate to buy up more land, if money is the reason. What the hell has changed since the First street bridge? Highways had a $h!+load more space to do that there, but decided to have the end result of keeping the street straight. The same attempt was done, keeping the road straight, just North of our proposed new swoop on 18th going over the river by doing one bridge at a time. So the questions needs to be asked again... Why this time? How much money does it really save our government? Why didn't our city speak up when the options were presented? Why isn't there proper pedestrian access for the West side? If traffic flow is such an concern (or excuse) during construction, why doesn't Manitoba Infrastructure work with the city to finish Pacific Ave. and have it joint up with 26th street? ...Or help rejoin 26th street back to 18th by extending Hilton? Doesn't anyone else think that 18th street looks like a mess of "patchwork of projects" and still looks and feels incomplete? ...Because it is and always has been a series of quick fixes. Why is the main artery of transportation so disjointed? Shouldn't Brandon and the people who drive through Brandon deserve a better roadway system traveling North & South? This is just another great example of "Just give them the minimum of what's required" from our Provincial government. As far as I'm concern, 18th should've been two or three lanes each way from an overpass at the Trans Can. running STRAIGHT through to the 110 turn off, years ago. But I'm not surprised. How can we get a better road if Highways can't even recognize the condition of the Trans Can. at Portage. The main corridor that runs through and connects our Province is crumbling in one part, over crowded in other parts and unfinished in the remaining... Just gets one "band-aid fix" after another. Which just brings us right back to "the swoop", to me this is bridge project will look and feel like a cheap fix and it will be like that for fifty or sixty years. More people should be feeling cheated out of a good job that's not getting done. This could be done better.  
 
Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

If I remember correctly they went with the curved bridges because it displaces the fewest people. No matter what there were significant changes to the south side of the bridge that are unavoidable, but on the north side several houses west of the current bridge had to be removed to build straight bridges.  
 
Looking at 18th as a whole, from Park to the bridge there simply isn't the space to add 2 whole lanes. But I'd agree that it should be 4 lane from the TC to Kirkaldy.

The sudden 8th Street Bridge removal trapped citizens who lived north of the CPR lines... leaving them no convenient access to Downtown Brandon. The Daly Overpass over the CPR tracks is built like a Roman Aqueduct with monstrous cement support Arches. If this Overpass redevelopment widens 18th Street by one additional eastside lane to the three existing lanes, this lane will be asymmetrical to the bridge design and I believe it will require further engineering examination to ensure this Imbalance Act will be stable for at least another 50 years- minimum. A Plexiglas model of the overpass over the train tracks could show where the weak stress points would be, if viewed by Engineers under polarized light. Photoelastic Stress Analysis has been around for over fifty years. Like Manitoba Hydro wisely tells us: Call before you Dig! We should study before we create something that won't answer the problems we create for ourselves.  
 
I have tried to argue since running for Mayor two elections ago that there are sound reasons to convince the Administration of the CPR to relocate their Lines parallel to the TransCanada Highway atop the North Hill... so we can join all of the Brandon Streets North of Pacific Avenue clear up to the North Hill. All these detached streets have been surveyed and the amount of new real estate realized by this would absolutely knock any Property Developers out trying to get down to this! I attached a pic of a Manitoba Piggy Bank.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you think they are adding one lane to the current bridge? But that's not what's happening, it's being replaced.  
 
Regarding moving the CP lines, that is completely cost prohibitive. Firstly, if the city wants them moved, the city would have to pay for moving them. CP isn't going to pay a nickel to do that. Rough guess is there's 100 miles of track from the point where you'd angle north from the main line to where you'd come back south to meet the main line again. So you have to build 100 miles of track and buy the land that it runs on. Then you have to build at a minimum one railway bridges over the river, maybe 2 if CP wants access to the industrial area in the east end. Then you have to annex the land along the Trans Canada, which would require moving businesses on the north hill.. Or you have to put 2 railroad crossing into the TC if you wanted to run it north of the highway. Then how many miles of street and bridges over the river would have to build to connect every street north of Pacific Avenue? This would probably be a $500 million project, that CP isn't going to pay for, so you're burdening the taxpayers with it. I see why you only got 120 votes.

I'm thinking more in the neighborhood of $5 billion and up. $500 million doesn't go very far these days. To reroute the rail lines today is very expensive. It's not like in the 1880's. We are a railway city. The reason why Brandon exists is because of the railway.  
 
And just think there are some cities that have active rail lines running down the centre of the street, aka street runner trains.  
 
https://youtu.be/WsYtosQta5Y