12 March 2008
Train-Parking Decision Put Into Reverse
Winnipeg Manitoba - A city hall committee has slammed the
brakes on a plan to allow Canadian Pacific Railway to park trains in Transcona during the Red River Floodway expansion project.
On Tuesday, the infrastructure renewal and public works committee reversed its own week-old decision, which would have
allowed CPR to park trains between September 2008 and August 2009.
The move means drivers at the Panet Road, Plessis Road, and Peguis Street crossings of the CPR Keewatin line will see fewer trains
blocking traffic than they would have if the committee's decision of 4 Mar 2008 had been allowed to stand.
But the reversal has more serious implications, said Ernie Gilroy, chief executive of the Manitoba Floodway Authority, the provincial
government agency in charge of the floodway expansion.
The decision has put the five-year floodway construction schedule in jeopardy, driving up project costs, and calling into
question councillors' commitment to protecting the city from the next great flood, Gilroy said.
"The one thing I find so incredible about this is that this project is about protecting the citizens of Winnipeg," said
Gilroy, himself a city councillor from 1986 to 1992. "And it's being blocked by Winnipeg city council. I find that to be
absolutely incredible."
Expansion of the Red River Floodway began in 2005 and is expected to last five years.
The floodway authority had originally asked the committee to allow the CPR to stage, or park, its trains in an area in Transcona while
the authority rebuilt a railway bridge over the floodway.
On 4 Mar 2008, the committee concurred with a recommendation from city administration that the CPR be allowed to use a
staging area between Callsbeck Avenue and Plessis Road as a last resort during construction.
The floodway authority said the new railway bridge would be able to withstand a flood of unprecedented severity: one that could
happen once in 700 years.
While it rebuilt the dual-track bridge of the CPR-Keewatin line, the authority said it planned to build a
single-track detour bridge over the floodway.
Bridge work would have necessitated the staging of trains in an area between Panet and Plessis roads. It could also have meant blocking
Peguis Street for more than five minutes, two or three times a day while the CPR staged its trains, the city administration reported.
As a result of the committee's reversal, the cost of bridge reconstruction would jump by $19 million because the authority would have
to build two detour rail bridges - one each for eastbound and westbound trains - rather than one that trains headed in both directions
could share, Gilroy said. Construction would also be delayed one year, he added.
The committee returned to the railway issue on an appeal from Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt, who said there was widespread public
disapproval of the committee's 4 Mar 2008 decision.
In an appearance before the committee Tuesday, Wyatt scoffed at the floodway authority's claims.
"This is about not altering the CPR train schedules," Wyatt said. "It's not about building a brand-new
bridge over the floodway or increasing the cost to the floodway or delaying the floodway (expansion)."
Wyatt suggested there were other options besides having CPR park trains in ways that could lead to traffic tie-ups, such
as staging trains in the Rural Municipality of Springfield or splitting long trains into shorter
segments.
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