3 breakdowns in 2 weeks for Winnipeg's lone line-painting machine
Winnipeg's lone street-line painting machine broke down three times within the last two weeks.
Drivers may have noticed faded or missing lines on many Winnipeg streets.
But despite the breakdowns, the city says its crew is on track to give all streets a coat of paint this year.
At a meeting of city council's public works committee on Thursday, public works director Jim Berezowsky said the machine is 19 years old and nearing the end of its life.
"Fortunately enough, the breakdowns were quick and efficient to get up and running," he said.
The City of Winnipeg approved funding in last year's budget to purchase a new line-painting machine, but public works committee chair Coun. Janice Lukes said it could be a long time before it arrives.
"Paint is not the answer for everything safety-related, but it is one of the tools in the toolkit to ensure safety at intersections on high-speed, major corridors around schools, pedestrian crosswalks and the like," Lukes said in an interview Friday.
The city typically paints lines on roads once per year and applies a second coat to about a quarter of them, depending on weather and road conditions, according to a report presented to the committee on Thursday.
Crews have completed approximately 25 per cent of line painting and about 30 per cent of intersection painting so far this year, city spokesperson Julie Dooley wrote in an email statement.
"This is on-par with where we'd want to be at this point of the season," she wrote.
A new machine could cost as much as $1 million, and is expected to arrive in 2026.
The city is also considering whether to buy the same type of machine, which only uses paint, or one that can use a longer-lasting epoxy-based lane marking material.
The city issued a request for tender for a contractor to help apply a second coat of paint on all streets — at a cost of up to between $1.4 million and $1.9 million.
Dil Subedi, owner of Windsor DC Driving School, says the current state of the city's streets makes it difficult to teach student drivers.
"It's very stressful," Subedi said.
"They cannot just keep the car in the lane if the lines are not clear. So they keep drifting over … it's very challenging for both of them, both the learner and the instructors."
Painting street lines typically costs between $800 and $1,100 per kilometre, according to the report. That is higher than rural highway painting, due to urban issues such as traffic volume and signal delays.
Dooley says the crew is working on a compressed schedule to maximize the time spent painting.
"Depending on weather conditions, covering more than 25 per cent of streets with more than one application of paint may be possible," Dooley wrote.
In 2021, the city was able to complete a second application of paint to lane markings across the entire city.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Driver ejected from vehicle, passenger seriously injured in Deerfoot Trail crash
Emergency crews respond to a single-vehicle crash on Deerfoot Trail on Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025.
CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
Should Montreal double its number of bike paths? One study says ‘yes'
A McGill University study found that Montreal bike path infrastructure is below the demand, and the city could, and maybe should, double it. Loading the player instance is taking more time than usual Loading the player instance is taking more time than usual There are not enough bike lanes in Montreal, a McGill University study finds, stating that 'micro-mobility' infrastructure does not meet the city's demands. Those who hop on a bicycle, e-bike, scooter, motorized unicycle or skateboard make up five per cent of the city's commuters, but the study found that the infrastructure for them takes up just two per cent of the road space. Bike density versus bike infrstructure The ratio of bike paths relative to the amount of users in Montreal suggests the city could double the infrastructure in the future. (Platial Analysis Lab/McGill University) Far from pushing cars off Montreal streets, the study, titled 'The cars are going to be alright: Examining micro-mobility infrastructure space allocation and potential improvement scenarios in Montreal," suggests that more space for bikes would barely affect motorized vehicle traffic patterns. 'If people had a better understanding of how little space it takes, because it's such a space-efficient transport mode, maybe they would be less upset about giving some of that space to a cyclist,' said lead author Daniel Romm, a PhD candidate in McGill's Department of Geography. People for Bikes, a site dedicated to improving biking in cities, named Montreal the best city for cycling among major cities in 2022. Via Rail listed Montreal as one of the top five bike-friendly cities in Canada. However, Romm said that in the 11 studies analyzing street space in recent years, Montreal ranks highly by North American standards, but trails far behind European cities, which have superior bike infrastructure. 'What we find when we compare to studies that used European cities is that Montreal is doing much, much worse,' he said. 'In the global picture, Montreal is still doing quite poorly.' Romm said he found that, despite criticisms about bike lanes, the reality is that there are not enough of them. 'We found that micro-mobility infrastructure takes up a very small proportion of street space in Montreal,' he said. 'Even doubling all existing infrastructure, it still makes up just a minuscule proportion.' That ratio is even more pronounced in some boroughs. The study found that in Montreal's Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, 22 per cent of people use micro-mobility, but the infrastructure remains under five per cent of the street space. To compile the study, researchers looked at dedicated, physically separated bike paths, cycle tracks and BIXI docks. Romm said the methods the researchers used, which included the Equal Infrastructure Allocation (EIA) score, can help improve space for cyclists. 'This is best used as a diagnostic tool for where there's too little space,' he said. 'It's very intuitive: square metres per traveller is a simple way to understand whether infrastructure is keeping up with demand.' The researchers combined street geometry data from the city with regional travel surveys and modelled future scenarios, including doubling the existing micro-mobility infrastructure. They found that these new scenarios would give 'significant gains for cyclists, without dramatically affecting space for cars.' Going from two per cent to four, five or even 10 per cent would still give 90+ per cent of the road to automobiles. 'Micro-mobility infrastructure is incredibly space-efficient,' said Romm. 'There's ample available space for such infrastructure without severely affecting the relative space allocated to automobiles.' The team said it intends to do the same study in other Canadian cities, which Romm expects to also 'have a lot of catching up to do.'
CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
Airdrie man wins $1M on scratch lottery ticket
An Airdrie man who won $1 million on a scratch-and-win ticket says he plans to use some of his winnings to purchase a new car. Gurpal Parmar's windfall comes from a $100 Ultimate Scratch & Win ticket he purchased at the Mobil gas station in Olds, Alta. He says he was shocked when he realized he had won. 'I checked it on the scanner, and then the Lotto Spot app as well to be sure,' Parmar said in a Monday news release from the Western Canada Lottery Corporation. 'My hands were shaking. I felt like I needed to sit and have some water – I was in pure disbelief.' Parmar says the first person he told was his mom. Aside from buying a new car – which Parmar says he desperately needs – he's also looking at buying a new house. 'I'm hoping to invest the rest of it,' he added. 'My family and I have never taken a family vacation, so we'll probably do that as well.'
