The Call of the Open Sidewalk

Man, this thing just won't go away. Here is a letter written to a city councillor by a local citizen. This is a great example of how a government can generate negative feelings from pretty much everyone by proposing something and then unproposing it. From now on, whenever anyone gets hurt at the old bridge they will hate the civic government for almost building the new bridge.

Oh, and by the way, I am the local citizen in question:

Dear Councillor ******,

On August the 5th I was involved in an accident in Omand's park. The experience raised some questions.

I was heading westbound through the park on a bicycle approaching the bridge over Omand's creek. It had recently rained. After the decent on the southbound incline I lost control in the curve and crashed on the asphalt surface of the path. A person fishing in the creek came over to offer assistance. He mentioned that he had seen eleven people crash in the way I had. It turned out that my injuries were in no way life threatening and consisted only of frightening looking scrapes and bruises but the knowledge of the crashes of the other ten people produced a social obligation. Hence this letter.

I have been using the bridge at Omand's creek for a long time. I have always considered the eastern approach to the bridge to be unsafe. A steep grade followed by two steep turns followed by a narrow bridge is challenging at the best of times. After my crash I noticed that the surface was remarkably slick with what seemed to be clay. I have a theory for why this was the case. The area near the bridge is known to flood on a regular basis (it has flooded there twice this year so far). During a rain I think that clay deposited by the flooding on the ground above the path is washed over the path. This would leave the surface very slippery when there was any amount of moisture on the path.

There was recently a proposal to upgrade the bridge. I am now quite curious to know about the thinking around the eventual cancellation of the project in light of the fact that such an improved bridge would of prevented my crash. There was a community input meeting associated with the bridge proposal. The cycle users of the existing bridge, the group that would most benefit from the new bridge, were left unaware of the meeting. The meeting notices were posted during the winter in only one small part of the city. I only knew of the meeting because I happen to take walks through the Wolseley area. Anyway, I attended and know that there were no really compelling arguments presented against the new bridge. As the events of the meeting really can not be used as any sort of political justification I address my question directly to the City of Winnipeg. Specifically and more concisely: What rationale was used to justify the cancellation of the Omand's Creek Park bridge project?

Going forward, my other question for the City of Winnipeg is: What actions are to be taken to improve the safety of the east approach to the Omand's Park bridge? After all, the City is promoting this route as part of the Active Transportation Network. I would not like to think that we are encouraging people to take a course of action that is likely to end up with them lying painfully on the asphalt as I was.

I acknowledge the recent action of removing the metal posts from the approaches to the bridge. This will likely increase the number of collisions between bicyclists and pedestrians on the bridge but I still support the removal. The resulting accidents are likely to be significantly less damaging to all concerned than a collision with a solid object.

posted at: 15:11 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry