Red Light, Green Light, No Oversight A Free Press investigation into the City of Winnipeg's transportation division By: Ryan Thorpe Posted:

Christian Sweryda has spent hundreds of hours cataloguing and tracking the changes to intersections in Winnipeg. His findings point to financial mismanagement in the public works department.

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This article was published 23/02/2022 (1603 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Christian Sweryda has spent hundreds of hours cataloguing and tracking the changes to intersections in Winnipeg. His findings point to financial mismanagement in the public works department.

That research is the basis of a Free Press investigative series by Ryan Thorpe: Red Light, Green Light, No Oversight.

 

 

 

Winnipeg’s public works dept. wastes millions of tax dollars on unnecessary projects, independent research reveals

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeg’s public works department wastes millions of tax dollars on unnecessary streets and transportation projects, independent research reveals.

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How many times can city crews change a traffic light?A Free Press investigation by Ryan Thorpe sought to answer that question, resulting in the discovery of wasteful spending and frivolous infrastructure projects carried out by the public works department for more than a decade.

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Winnipeggers deserve an explanation for waste of taxpayer dollars: expert

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Independent researcher Chris Sweryda poses for a portrait at Henderson and Peguis (where a single left turn lane has two signal lights) in Winnipeg on Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. For Ryan Thorpe story. Winnipeg Free Press 2022.

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The anti-corruption expert grew increasingly concerned with each passing example of costly and confusing construction projects ordered by Winnipeg’s public works department — year after year, intersection after intersection.

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Yellow caution flashes again 12 years after audit condemns city department

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

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Allegations of financial mismanagement in the transportation division of the public works department should not come as a surprise at city hall.

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A decade of deadly delay

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Eye-level lights at the pedestrian crossing at Roblin Boulevard and Hunterspoint Road, where a boy was seriously injured in 2018, in Winnipeg on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022. For Ryan story. Winnipeg Free Press 2022.

Posted:

For the past 11 years, independent researcher and traffic-safety activist Christian Sweryda has been urging the City of Winnipeg to install eye-level safety lights at pedestrian corridors.

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Winnipegger’s effort to replace missing school area traffic signs thwarted by city department’s couldn’t-care-less attitude

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS 30km/h school zone speed limit sign on Grosvernor Avenue near Wilton Street, Thursday, October 18, 2018.

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It was sometime in 2011 when independent researcher and traffic-safety activist Christian Sweryda started to notice locations where school-zone signs were missing in Winnipeg.

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Ryan Thorpe

Ryan Thorpe
Reporter

Ryan Thorpe likes the pace of daily news, the feeling of a broadsheet in his hands and the stress of never-ending deadlines hanging over his head.

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