Southwest Transitway to undergo $700,000 in repairs

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This article was published 23/07/2018 (2250 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Six years after the completion of the $138-million first leg of Winnipeg’s Southwest Transitway, the route is undergoing repairs to the tune of an estimated $700,000.

The project includes work to be done between Main Street, Queen Elizabeth Way and Jubilee Avenue to repair damage and ensure defects won’t get any larger.

Work began Monday, and final repairs are expected to be complete by the September long weekend.

The bus rapid transit line from Queen Elizabeth Way to Harkness Station — which is currently shut down — will reopen likely by the end of the week, when normal service from Main Street will resume, the City of Winnipeg said. Until then, affected buses are being rerouted onto area streets.

The city contends repairs this soon after completion of the transitway are not unusual nor an indictment on the quality of work done during initial construction.

“Pavement defects can and do occur on new pavements shortly after installation. These repairs are normal preservation activities that are undertaken to ensure the defects do not get larger or negatively impact the pavement lifecycle and transit operations,” Winnipeg Transit manager of communications Alissa Clark wrote in an email to the Free Press.

The area currently undergoing repairs is part of the first leg of the transitway, which was completed in 2012. The second section is projected to be finished by 2020, at a cost of $467 million.

The current construction will include both partial and full-depth concrete repairs, according to Clark, who said there will also be reconstruction work on the platforms at the Harkness and Fort Rouge stations to replace damaged detectable warning tiles.

Such tiles can be damaged during normal snow-clearing operations, and periodically need maintenance, Clark said, adding the entire first leg of the line will undergo diamond grinding, aimed at rehabilitating the roadway.

“The diamond-grinding process, which is generally used on longer roadways, is performed when the pavement first demonstrates a ride or surface issue often caused from soil movements and deflections in the surface from concrete curing. This treatment is best performed early to prevent accelerated pavement failures associated with surface imperfections,” Clark said.

The $700,000 repair project is being carried out by Maple Leaf Construction Ltd.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe