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Copyright Pegasus Publications Inc. MARTY Dorothy Dobbie


The real state of our of physical city I


n the past few weeks, I have driven over half of Manitoba and Alberta so coming home to Winnipeg’s dilapidated streets hits the eye with more force than ever.


The patched up pavements, the crumbling curbs, the sorry, ugly boulevards full of red stone, infested with weeds, or even worse, barren, grassless, muddy spots where once was a smooth field of green all de- press me. And don’t even get me start-


ed on the trees – well, I have to say something, because see- ing


their sad plight actually


hurts me. Even here in “beau- tiful” Charleswood, there are a dozen leafless, dead trees on the boulevards and, of those that are not dead, many are dying. Others display lifeless limbs or great wounds near ground level where machinery has carelessly gouged the bark during win- ter snow clearing. Dead trees


adorn the edge of Assiniboine Park, too. Recently, Gail Asper wrote a letter to the editor of our


daily newspaper decrying the lack of a “logical, coherent and efficient” road repair program. She was so right. Not only does the city disrupt a large number of neighbourhoods and main arteries every summer, but they do so in a manner that guarantees they will be back again soon. Case in point, are the half streets that get repaved for a block or maybe two, then stop, sometimes at an intersection that is filled with patches and potholes. Moreover, they do these repairs and don’t touch the curbs (a different department?) so they have to come back or, as is more and more often the case, allow the curb to crumble away to nothingness. More disturbing is the latest lazy wrinkle in boulevard management. In a few cases, the grass has been replaced with a paving of cheap asphalt, drab and gray and dirty look- ing. This was done when the bridge was repaired a couple of years ago in the centre median of Roblin approaching the Perimeter Bridge. This has also been done on Kenaston in the median at the corner of Beaverbrook. Why? It wasn’t always like this. Back in the day, I would fre- quently travel to Edmonton where the same condition we see here in Winnipeg today prevailed there. I felt pretty smug about our well-kept streets. I remember feeling some scorn for that pretentious town that couldn’t even maintain its public spaces. Now I despair at my own hapless city. Our once showcase avenue, Broadway, has its boulevard lined with broken con- crete blocks, the grass unmaintained, the trees losing ground to disease and insects. The irrigation system that once wa- tered the grass and the trees has been shut off due, one sup- poses, to a lack of interest in maintaining the equipment. Thank God, the province has determined to repair memorial Boulevard, and one hopes, part at least of this once lovely avenue. However, this will make the rest of the street look even worse in contrast. Portage Avenue is a patchwork of maintenance and disre-


pair. Hard to believe that in this day of green consciousness empty tree coffins all along the Avenue remind us of a kind- er, gentler day when trees actually were a priority for the city. St. James is a mess, and then it becomes ordered, then


turns into a mess again at Polo Park and beyond. Things pick up for a while as you approach downtown, but even there the maintenance seems to vary greatly and there are several dead, dead, dead trees very near Memorial. Even the quality


beetle, emerald ash borer and the woolly ash psyllid, not to mention annual infestations of tent caterpillars, cankerworms, aphids and more. This is all the more reason to consider this vital piece of infrastructure in setting civic budgets for maintenance. I don’t know how crews are despatched or organized,


T


but it would make sense to have pruning crews who would be responsible for trimming dead branches, set- ting priorities for main arteries (where most of the dam- age occurs due to stress from heavy traffic) who would also be able to assess removal needs as they go. Removal should follow the same priority pattern. Finally, replanting is vitally important for a whole bunch of ecological reasons: cleaning air and groundwa- ter of pollutants and carbon, reducing city heat islands, helping to prevent flooding, and so on. However, the prevailing practice and what is demand- ed by the city of Winnipeg is to plant what is termed “caliper” trees – trees that must be anywhere from two to three inches in diameter and about 11 feet tall. What we should be considering is planting very young


trees – whips – which more readily establish roots in their new medium and do not have to rely so heavily on stored starches to get established. It has been proven that transplanting a young tree, two to three years old and perhaps two to three feet tall with little lateral branching, will result in a stronger healthier tree that will catch up to its older siblings and surpass them within just a few years.


The issue here is how to protect this little tree while it


is getting to caliper stage and that can take some ingenu- ity. But it is not an insurmountable problem. Planting whips would seriously reduce the cost of pur- chasing trees and the labour involved in the actual plant- ing. The lower cost would more than offset the price of additional tree protection (a brick surround, for ex- ample). We need creative thinking to solve the threatened and dying trees of our city. Our health depends on it.


of the floral displays varies greatly. Some look terrific, oth- ers are barely hanging on. Is this inconsistency due to zonal management? If so, where is the supervisor or inspector who should be maintaining consistent quality control? Finally, we come to Portage and Main. What prompted


the multi-coloured painting of these ugly lumps of concrete? If this was meant as a nod to gender diversity, I am sure the artists among them are horrified. The barriers looked bad before. Now the paint just brings attention to them and to our bad taste as a city. When I drive out to surrounding communities, curbs are


tidy, boulevards are green, trees are trimmed, streets are un- patched. What has happened to the priorities, the organiza- tion, the management of our City? In so many ways, it is such a lovely place and it could be so much more so. Here and there you glimpse little bits of possibility – the beautiful floral planting in front of the Fairmont is an example, but down the street, the Hudson Bay store has been allowed to decay both inside and out. It breaks my heart.


MORANTZ CHARLESWOOD | ST. JAMES | ASSINIBOIA | HEADINGLEY


“I believe in Andrew Scheet’s strong, positive vision for Manitoba. It’s time to put Canada back on track.”


www.Marty4MP.com August 2019 whatsupwinnipeg.ca 3


MARTY MORANTZ & ANDREW SCHEER WILL STAND UP FOR MANITOBA BY:


Scrapping Justin Trudeau’s job-killing carbon tax


Stopping illegal border crossers from jumping the queue


Ensure better support for our troops


Mitigation ideas to deal with the loss of our trees


here is no doubt that the city is facing major challenges when it comes to its tree population with threat from several insects: the Dutch elm


Authorized by the Official Agent for the Charleswood-St.James-Assiniboia-Headingley Electoral District Association


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