Here’s what some Winnipeggers like — and don’t like — about the mayor’s proposed plan for Portage and Main
Debate over the future of Winnipeg’s iconic intersection has resurfaced after the mayor announced Friday he wants to open Portage and Main to pedestrians by summer 2025 and close the circular walkway underneath the intersection.
Mike Publicover, owner of Stonework’s Bistro in Winnipeg Square, said the mayor’s plan definitely won’t help the underground mall, Winnipeg Square, which he said is already struggling with low foot traffic.
“Any time you impede the flow of business to your operation, there’s going to be concerns,” Publicover said, though he added he’s not ready to press “any panic buttons” just yet.
Gillingham’s plan, which must be supported by council, said Friday that a new city report put the costs of repairing a leaky membrane that protects the underground walkway beneath the intersection at at least $73 million.
About 2,100 people cross below the intersection during a two-hour peak period in the middle of weekdays, the city’s report said.
Publicover said businesses in the mall were hit hard by the post-pandemic transition to remote work, and that empty storefronts aren’t helping the situation either.
He said about 50 per cent of mall spaces are currently vacant.
“It’s like a ghost town,” Publicover said. “We hear it almost every day on the counter, like people that say they don’t come down here because there really wasn’t anything here.”
Melani Bastians, who owns Caribbean Vibes at the mall, said she has mixed feelings about the potential reopening, but she thinks the underground walkway should be repaired.
“That’s a lot of money to repair, but it’s also going to give longevity, right. It’s not like we’re going to repair it and then it’s not going to get used. Tons of people use it,” she said. “It’s worth it.”
She that if the city is not willing to pay for it then it should invest the money it’s saving elsewhere in the downtown.
Bastians also said she thinks many Winnipeggers won’t like crossing the intersection above ground because it’s busy and unsafe for pedestrians, and that re-opening will worsen gridlock in the city.
“It’s insane already, right? Like, the gridlock is crazy already. And to think that we would have to wait for pedestrians, it’s gonna be crazy.”
Deliveries will be a lot harder: Deli owner
About 72,000 vehicles pass through the intersection every weekday, the report said. The mayor said Friday he couldn’t support the underground walkway repairs because they would lead to four to five years of traffic disruptions.
Ira Brick, who owns Ira’s Deli on Lombard Avenue near the intersection, said his business heavily relies on deliveries. Though he’d like to cross Portage and Main as a pedestrian, he’s worried it could jam up traffic near his business.
“If you make it much more difficult to get across Portage Avenue, then it’s going to impact traffic all the way up and it could cause sudden, significant hardship to our business,” he said. “Just trying to get deliveries out is going to be a lot harder if Portage and Main is open to the public.”
Brick said he feels sorry for people who invested money to open shop in the underground mall.
“They’re going to be thrown to the wolves,” he said. “They’re going lose their livelihoods.… It’s already hard to have a restaurant downtown.”
City not thinking long-term, resident says
If the city opted to repair the intersection without keeping the underground concourse open, the costs would be in the $20 million to $50 million range — subject to a further study — plus $10 million to remove barricades and install sidewalks and pedestrian traffic signals, the report said.
Randy Zaborniak, a field engineer who was involved in the construction of the underground concourse in the Richardson Building, said he worries the city isn’t thinking long term.
“If you have a leak in the membrane above the lower concourse, they’re not addressing that. That’s going to continue to happen and you’re going to get structural degradation in that concourse,” he said.
“It’s going to be a problem that’s only going to continue to get worse as time goes on. And yeah, it might be expensive to fix the membrane today, but if you don’t the bill is going to be much, much more later on.”
Underground concourse ‘a maze’
But for David Kron, the executive director of the Cerebral Palsy Association of Manitoba, opening the intersection would make the city more accessible. He noted that some on the entrances to the underground walkway are only accessible by stairs.
“Where there is an elevator, sometimes the buildings are closed. It’s not open 24 hours,” he told CBC News.
Kron noted that a few years ago, one elevator inside a building that connected to the walkway was closed for months because “it took forever just to figure out who owned it and who was in charge of maintenance.”
The underground concourse can also be difficult to navigate, Kron added.
“It was a maze down there … whether you have a disability or not,” he said.
Kron hopes that if the intersection does open to pedestrians, that the city will make sure it’s “full accessible.” That includes making the crossing lights long enough for people to make their way across the street.
“Universal design is for everybody,” he said. “That is the philosophy and the standard that the city needs to achieve.”
Check out CBC’s TikTok on the decision to reopen Portage and Main to pedestrian traffic … and how we got here.
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