High-tech quads are now rolling through Winnipeg’s 3,200 kilometres of sidewalks and pathways to snap images of route conditions and help pinpoint the most needed repairs.
The four bright red, four-wheeled sidewalk surface testers are equipped with GPS technology and a pair of cameras pointed in front and behind the vehicle to photograph walkway conditions. A driver can also input data, while a top-mounted solar panel helps support the devices attached to the gas-powered quad.
The first one began rolling through the city earlier this month.
NIC ADAM / FREE PRESS
Field tech Kenneth Morrison drives one of the city’s new sidewalk surface testing vehicles next to Pembina Highway, Friday.
The chairwoman of council’s public works committee said the enhanced monitoring will help guide investments as the city continues to expand active transportation routes.
“We have projected $80 million towards improvements and upgrades and new active transportation infrastructure (over the next six years). So this will help, dramatically help, identify where the (repair) needs are,” said Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverley West).
Lukes said sidewalk cracks and dips can create tripping hazards, which aren’t always promptly reported to 311 or spotted in visual city inspections.
“We rely heavily on feedback from the public (to guide repairs). But to have this (new monitoring) and to be able to compare the inventory from year to year, to compare changes, I think it’s going to be way better in strategically investing where we spend our money.”
The councillor noted the city has had trouble in ensuring all sidewalks are even enough to handle snow-clearing vehicles, so speeding up the most pressing repairs could help improve other services, too.
Lukes said the city could shift additional repair funding from other projects, if the data shows greater-than-expected sidewalk damage.
Brad Neirinck, manager of engineering for Winnipeg public works, said the assessments will help prioritize repairs as the city ramps up its budget for that work.
“That data will be processed and it will help us determine which sidewalks should be renewed, for us to come up with a plan (on) where we should do localized maintenance,” said Neirinck.
NIC ADAM / FREE PRESS
Brad Neirinck, Public Works Manager of Engineering, says the city’s new sidewalk surface testing program will help prioritize repairs as the city sets its budget for that work.
The city plans to spend about $1.06 million to repair sidewalks along local streets in 2024, followed by $1.12 million in 2025, $3.28 million in 2026 and $4.5 million in 2027, while regional sidewalks tend to be repaired as part of street renewals.
Neirinck said a contract with International Cybernetics Canada will see the company, which owns the vehicles, assess sidewalks on dry weather days in 2024 and 2027, while the city plans to repeat the assessments every three years from now on.
This is the first time the city will have an automated rating of sidewalks, with the first round of data gathered between August and October.
“They’ll collect information on the type of surface material, concrete or asphalt, the length, the width, any kind of surface defects, tripping hazards, cracks,” said Neirinck.
Once the surface testers have travelled across the city’s entire slate of sidewalks and paths, each will be rated as new, good, fair, poor, or very poor to help time repairs.
Neirinck said a couple of road-monitoring vans are also assessing roads in a similar fashion, though street data collection has been much more extensive than sidewalks for some time.
NIC ADAM / FREE PRESS
The city’s four new sidewalk surface testing vehicles will be used to snap images of route conditions on Winnipeg’s 3,200 kilometres of sidewalks and pathways to help pinpoint the most needed repairs.
The city expects to spend $220,000 in 2024 to rate streets, sidewalks and paths on regional streets and $655,000 to rate travel routes on local ones.
A separate pothole detection pilot program that relies on vehicle-mounted cameras is expected to begin in 2025. Those vehicles will travel through the city much more often and focus specifically on detecting potholes, said city spokeswoman Julie Horbal Dooley.
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Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter
Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.
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