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Breadcrumb Trail Links Winnipeg News Second-year law student and traffic researcher Christian Sweryda. James Snell/Winnipeg Sun Photo by James Snell/Winnipeg Sun Article content
Second-year law student and traffic researcher Christian Sweryda presented to the City’s Finance Committee and members of the public works department on Thursday over the alleged squandering of millions of dollars on unnecessary infrastructure projects related to traffic signals. The public works department offered an extensive and detailed scrap that satisfied some committee members.
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A special meeting of Finance gathered to investigate Sweryda’s allegations, which amount to “hundreds and hundreds” of possible make-work projects carried out over a decade. Sweryda, who submitted 20 Freedom of Information requests during his research, says there’s a systematic pattern of inefficient and unnecessary work, including infrastructure rebuilds without justification. He spent 800 to 900 hours on the project. His presentation lasted more than 30 minutes and involved dozens of digital street-view images.
“I want people to know that the people we charge to look out for us are not necessarily acting in our best interest,” said Sweryda in a media scrum. “We shouldn’t always assume that, and we have to look at things with a critical eye. What my research has shown is that not only is taxpayer money not being used efficiently but there are so many road safety concerns that need to be addressed, like missing signs, crosswalk design – things like this.”
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Sweryda said he has been met with defensiveness at the City. He said he doesn’t sense a desire to fix the problem, rather a hope it’ll just go away. He said there’s also an attitude of denial because the department “doesn’t seem to want to meet with me.”
“My goal is a complete overhaul of how traffic management is done in this town,” he said. “I don’t believe that the people currently running our traffic division are actively working towards the best for taxpayers both monetarily, but especially in road safety.”
Traffic signals engineer Roger Petursson offered a comprehensive technical explanation to educate the Finance Committee about how and why the department carries out work on traffic signals. Numerous specific cases were presented to balance, and correct, Sweryda’s assertions.
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Jim Berezowsky, director of Public Works, claimed elected officials “obviously are unaware” of what it takes to deliver traffic signals services.
“I also want to take the time after hearing a lot of what I heard today, essentially reiterating how proud I am of all these people,” he said. “Without them we’ve got nothing. I can’t say enough about the effort these people put forward. And it’s unfortunate that situations occur where elected officials may have information or may make allegations and statements about the trust and respect that they have for the public service. I personally find that directly unacceptable.”
Twitter @JamesWestgateSn
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