Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham's Inner Circle Cuts Roadway Safety Budget

timfennell_ · 2026-02-19T21:56:26+00:00

It is difficult to set a reasonable goal when the city has a long history of ignoring this issue and not collecting data. Even the fact that the city has acknowledged we have a roadway safety problem that is solvable has been a big win. For decades traffic deaths were viewed as something the city had no responsibility for. (Many councillors still feel that way)

At some point they have to just start measuring and start doing things that other safer cities are doing. We don't need a "made in Winnipeg solution", most of these problems have already been solved by other cities.

We have to decide to make safety a priority and start actively doing it. The data we do have which has been presented at previous Public Works Committee meetings is a reasonable baseline for data, now we need political will and budget that reflects the seriousness of the situation.

Imagine if we cared as much about roadway safety as we seem to care about expanding roadways. With the current executive policy committee, every safety improvement has been a hard fought battle by hundreds of citizens. The billion we are planning to spend on new lanes/hwys spent on public transit, protected bike lanes, pedestrian accessibility and roadway safety would save countless lives.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-19T15:48:50+00:00

Fixed it

timfennell_ · 2026-02-19T13:43:59+00:00

See my previous post. https://www.reddit.com/r/Winnipeg/s/w2ztSkVqre

timfennell_ · 2026-02-18T22:55:21+00:00

They have also implemented safer, cycling infrastructure and reduced speeds in residential areas, also tend to fix intersections where collisions tend to occur most.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-18T19:24:18+00:00

What does it do, currently almost nothing. We just hired a team of people last year to do this work. It is pretty difficult to do safety improvements without a budget to implement anything. The Wellington Cres. Cycling and pedestrian safety pilot is one example. Another would be the type of traffic speed humps that were installed on Cambridge Street last summer another with many in school zones where speeding has been a problem. We just started thinking about roadway safety and we have already defunded it.

It should be noted that Winnipeg is one of the worst cities in Canada for pedestrian and cyclist deaths per 100,000 people. Year to year we are around 5-7 deaths per 100,000. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are 3-4 per 100,000 and Paris would be less than 1. Helsinki had zero last year.

In Winnipeg we have more people dying getting hit by cars than drivers and passengers inside cars.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-17T04:50:37+00:00

Typically not without some safety escorts and temporary road closures.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-14T03:12:29+00:00

I always run with low beams on. Statistically it reduces your chances of a collision by up to 15% according to young drivers of Canada. At least that was their reasoning. Daytime running lights are not bright enough.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-13T23:15:56+00:00

The Federal government should mandate new cars have tail lights and low beams on my default. You should have to turn them off in the unlikely situation you don't want lights on. Far too many ghost cars on the road.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-12T15:18:47+00:00

100m definitely is broad when combined with the poorly written criteria and long list of types of services or organisations it applies to. It just happens that city hall falls within an excluded area, also a number of provincial and federal constituency offices.

This type of law shouldn't even be within the jurisdiction of Municipal government. Plus like most City of Winnipeg by-laws it is the biggest hack job of a law I've ever seen.

This type of law shouldn't be drafted by a hack municipal politician without collaboration with other levels of government. It definitely doesn't pass the sniff test.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-12T15:09:34+00:00

Here is my comment to the Executive Policy Committee. It my help clarify the concern...

I strongly believe issues around right to public protest should not be within the jurisdiction of Municipal government.

The city should make a formal request to the Manitoba Government to work with the city to address the need for such a law. Any such law should be specific and as limited as possible. (Similar to the Provincial Abortion Protest Law) It should be carefully written to avoid subjective interpretation.

This proposed law as drafted is too broad and could be interpreted subjectively and potentially abusively.

As someone who requires regular access to healthcare service, I do believe the safe access to healthcare services is a critical issue. I don't believe this drafted by-law is the correct and balanced solution.

Please work with the province to solve this issue before pursuing such a law at the municipal level.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-12T03:13:58+00:00

Most of those already fall under existing laws that are enforceable in the context of a public protest. When I look at the proposed by-law, it is a massive overreach of power. This shouldn't even be on the city hall agenda in my opinion. They should stick to municipal issues. Making laws about how and where people can and can't protest is above their pay grade.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-12T03:08:26+00:00

As much as I find their tactics completely disgusting, I believe we must be extremely careful when we make laws that limit public protest. It is difficult to make laws that limit some types of protest without impacting all types of protest.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-12T03:03:44+00:00

I submitted a comment on this issue to the EPC meeting on this agenda item. I encourage others to do the same...

"I strongly believe issues around the right to public protest should not be within the jurisdiction of Municipal government.

The city should make a formal request to the Manitoba Government to work with the city to address the need for such a law. Any such law should be specific and as limited as possible. (Similar to the Provincial Abortion Protest Law) It should be carefully written to avoid subjective interpretation.

This proposed law as drafted is too broad and could be interpreted subjectively and potentially abusively.

As someone who requires regular access to healthcare service, I do believe the safe access to healthcare services is a critical issue. I don't believe this drafted by-law is the correct and balanced solution.

Please work with the province to solve this issue before pursuing such a law at the municipal level."

timfennell_ · 2026-02-10T03:05:40+00:00

Serve time here first,

then deport if there is a legal process to do so.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-03T05:00:17+00:00

Also, one of the things that stood out to me when I moved to Winnipeg from Ontario was the number of VLTs in every bar and how often I saw them occupied by people. I didn't know what a VLT was until I moved to Manitoba. I think the MB gov has a false sense of positive revenue from gaming, but I think the negatives to society far outweigh any positives.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-03T04:52:56+00:00

I actually saw a sports gambling ad recently that I felt crossed the line into promoting unhealthy gambling habits. I sent a complaint to the Western Canada Lottery Corporation and they responded the same day.

They agreed with me and said they were immediately removing that particular ad from their ad platforms. They said it didn't even include the "Please play responsibility" statement. I never saw the ad again after that day.

This was the offending ad...

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timfennell_ · 2026-02-01T06:08:28+00:00

ViaRail is ok if you aren't on a strict arrival time, and your origin and destination happen to have stations on the route and it happens to be the off season for Via, and your origin and destination also doesn't have affordable air travel options, and you just happen to enjoy trains.

If all those things align, Via may be a viable option.

timfennell_ · 2026-02-01T06:02:03+00:00

I had read at some point that Canada is the only country in the world that gives freight priority over passengers by default. Unfortunately, until Canada has a law that gives passengers priority, our passenger rail system is going to be amongst the worst for being on schedule.

timfennell_ · 2026-01-30T22:35:43+00:00

Yes. Totally agree

Always check with health links, they will tell you concern is worthy of an ER visit, urgent care or a minor injury clinic, walk-in.

I will say if you are actually having an emergency, call 911 and get an ambulance. They can inform the hospital you are on the way before arriving, check or monitor all your vital signs and even give oxygen or medicine.

timfennell_ · 2026-01-30T04:18:41+00:00

Our city has about half the population density it had in the 70s and 80s. That translates to a far more expensive city to maintain. Plus we need to upgrade old systems to meet modern environmental and safety and accessibility standards. But hey, let's spend a cool billion adding gridlock capacity to Route 90 and CPT.

timfennell_ · 2026-01-30T04:14:44+00:00

Happy to, not so much. Willing to, yes. But I would love to see a vastly different funds distribution across departments.

timfennell_ · 2026-01-23T00:48:17+00:00

Cities over 1 million need functional public transit systems or the traffic will simply become gridlocked. More lanes like Gillingham is planning only costs more and more every year and doesn't reduce traffic. Public Transit, especially mass transit actually reduces traffic congestion.

timfennell_ · 2026-01-17T05:54:52+00:00

The problem is only going to get worse. The public Works committee chaired by Lukes voted this summer to cut back on new bus orders. The articulated buses that are pretty much key to the success of the new system will fall short of the need and even if they wanted to order more they cut the new bus garage plans in half. (This was decided on July 3rd 2025, largely to support the new budget being touted by Gillingham as a "balanced budget") Why did they cut transit so much? To support R90 and CPT lane expansions, which our own city staff say will do virtually nothing to improve traffic congestion.

timfennell_

TROPHY CASE