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Why is Bishop Grandin always under construction?  A rant by: BigB Ever since i can remember Winnipeg summers have been booked up with construction. Everywhere you go there is construction. This is good. Our roads are all Sh*t anyways. So why not have them fixed right? Well don't worry i'm not looking to contradict myself here. I actually do have an arguement here. The issue is why is it that when i go to any other city there is street crews working around the clock. Thats right, 24-7. Bishop is always under construction in summer. If we had multiple crews working on our roads or even better convinence the tax paying citizens and do all the road work at night. Things would get done a whole lot faster and it would make Winnipeg a much better place to live. If you drive daily down the same route you will notice they work about 2.75 days a week on a part that they are reservicing. That means the rest of the time there are barricades that just sit there doing nothing but slowing down traffic. Solution: stop fixing the roads, lower fuel prices and we can all drive big 4x4 trucks:) << Back Add a Comment Comments ( Add a Comment ) Anonymous says: 2005-08-17 16:05:53 Working for an engineering firm gives me the opportunity to see things from yet another side of this issue. Think about it, city workers are unionized, so to have them work past 5pm on any week day means OVERTIME pay, then to have them work on a Saturday or Sunday is DOUBLETIME pay. Who do you think pays for that? The City? Well where does the city get it's revenue -- that's right, us poor defenceless citizens (Higher taxes anyone?) So maybe the solution is to do more car-pooling and using public transportation so the roads don't need repair as often. BigB says: 2005-08-17 16:36:12 The day you see me on a 'peasantmobile' aka public transportation is the day that i cut off my testicles and donate them to a charity of your choice. All major road work is put up for bidding and outside companies (be it manitoban or often times albertan) bid on these tenders. The winner of this tender will do the job exclusively. These tenders all have deadlines. When the contractor goes past these deadlines they are penalized. This is why sometimes you do see crews working through the night to get the job complete in time. If a construction company were to go union i assure you the next day the doors would be closed and the day that followed they would have a new name on their sign and would be back in full force. It's just the way it works. But thanks for your input. The law has spoken. Anonymous says: 2005-08-23 14:33:22 What Law has Spoken? ??? BigB says: 2005-08-24 00:18:29 bring on the saran wrap and scotch tape. no-name is in for a suprise. THE LAW HAS SPOKEN. AngryPete says: 2005-08-26 12:39:13 You hit the nail on the head, BigB, and this has got to be my biggest pet peeve with construction season. WHY can't work be done around the clock? Oh right, the Union says NO! To hell with that. These guys should have 3 shifts (or just 2 at the least) - 8 to 4PM, 4 to 12AM, and graveyard, all paid the same rate, no shift premium, on ONE project until it's done, then move onto the next. This would certainly prevent being unreasonably delayedbecause the street has been pyloned off to a single lane for construction that begins in two weeks! THETRUTH says: 2005-09-29 03:38:53 give the welfare people a job fixing roads then one cancels out the other. also it seems alot of times they just put up barriers then start in fall just before it snows. stupid Anonymous says: 2005-10-02 12:06:31 It is true about crews working around the clock in other city's. They even play white noise to tune out the sounds of the construction equipment, which seems to work quite well in residential areas, where you may not want construction going on 24-7. As well in chicago, one of the first city's to actually fine companies for going over budget and deadlines, has said that this method has worked great in meeting there budget needs. BigB says: 2006-05-18 21:36:38 I may be wrong, but i haven't seen any construction on Bishop YET this year. But WTF are they doing on the South Perimeter RedRiver Bridge? They put some cheap ass ashalt down thats uneven and then blocked of the other lane to do the same? Maybe its the fact that i saw Borland (rinky dink outfit) doing the work or it could have been the fact that we seem to see patch jobs like this every year. But i am pissed off that they slow traffic down and dont even bother fixing things right. Next year this time we will see a different company doing the exact same thing all over again. SOLMoFo says: 2007-02-08 23:49:19 Sadly, BigB, you've got a point; this seems to be the new standard of road repairs. They remove approximately 1/2" - 1" of material from the road, then replace the material with new asphalt. Usually, this looks great (not always), but it is totally ineffective. The majority of cracks and irregularities are of greater depth than this repair. This method is both cost and labor efficient, but kind of like slitting your wrists and putting Flintstones bandaids on them. The road works fine until the first temperature variation; then, most irregularities are actually made worse by the different thermal expansion ratios of the different materials. Wait until the first day above 2 degrees, and go for a ride around the West Perimeter highway. Just make sure your dental insurance is paid up. |
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I used to live in Indianapolis, and there they did the majority of road construction from 11PM to 6AM. But that makes sense, and i don't think anything that makes sense would pass here.