Northwestern Transcona is poised to become a parking lot for Canadian Pacific Railway trains for almost a year while a new railway bridge is built over the expanded Red River Floodway.
The city has struck a tentative deal to allow CPR trains to queue up between the Kildonan Meadows and Harbour View neighbourhoods while the Manitoba Floodway Authority builds a new set of tracks over the massive drainage ditch.
Eastbound CPR trains must queue up in Transcona during the 11.5-month construction period because a temporary single-track bridge will handle train traffic in both directions. Westbound CPR trains will line up at a second staging area in the Rural Municipality of Springfield. The plan will cause traffic to back up as far as 1.1 kilometres along Panet Road and Peguis Street two or three times a day during the construction period, according to a report authored by city transportation engineers.
On Monday, city council's public works committee will hold a special meeting to consider the plan, which councillors originally approved on March 4 before reversing their own decision a week later over concerns about fire truck and ambulance access to Harbour View.
The latest plan before the committee calls for the Floodway Authority to pay for the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service to place a fire engine in Harbour View during the construction period.
Floodway authority CEO Ernie Gilroy said the new proposal should alleviate concerns about public safety.
"The city is comfortable the folks in Harbour View will get the proper service," Gilroy said in an interview.
But Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt remains outraged by the plan to queue up trains in his ward.
Wyatt said the CPR could stage trains in its Weston shops and accused provincial Transportation Minister Ron Lemieux of being scared of negotiating more aggressively with the railway.
"This is the Disraeli Bridge and OlyWest all over again. It's easy to dump on northeast Winnipeg, and that's what the province is doing," Wyatt seethed, referring to an ongoing dispute over fixing the freeway and a recent hog plant controversy. "There have been zero public consultations. The province could make this decision on its own, but this is a political hot potato and they don't have the guts to do it themselves."
A spokesman for Lemieux said the province is working with the city to ensure traffic disruptions are kept to a minimum.
Gilroy, meanwhile, said Wyatt does not appreciate the fact Canadian Pacific has already bent over backwards for the floodway authority by agreeing to send two-way train traffic over a single-track bridge.
"Quite frankly, they've made a major accommodation here, and I'm not sure that's being recognized," said Gilroy, urging all Winnipeggers to place the traffic disruptions within the broader context of the floodway expansion.
"This is about saving the city. This is critical to our project."
bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca
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