Designing pedestrian promenade

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/designing-pedestrian-promenade-575695572.html

AS we emerge from a global pandemic and move into the headwinds of a global climate crisis, change has become the only certainty for the world’s cities. Civic leadership that embraces bold ideas to overcome these evolving challenges, specifically in highly impacted downtown areas, will find the most success in the future.

Unveiled last year, but somewhat lost in the headlines of the pandemic, the new Winnipeg Transit Master Plan presents the city with an opportunity to lead this urban evolution. By marrying transit planning with creative urban design, we can leverage transit investment to create generational change in downtown Winnipeg.

There are three important downtown placemaking opportunities identified in the new plan. Major rapid transit stations will be built at Portage and Main and in old Union Station, establishing two significant nodes of activity. These can be leveraged through creative planning to create a gravity that attracts retail, housing and cultural amenities to support new and existing downtown residential neighbourhoods.

A third impactful move, the closing of the Graham Avenue Transit Mall, will create a kilometre-long opportunity to dream. With buses gone, and cars having been removed 30 years ago, Graham Avenue will become a blank slate upon which we can draw our vision for the future.

Graham Avenue has the scale and diversity to become a special public space in downtown. Some blocks have green space and little old buildings that support sidewalk retail like bookstores, coffee shops and convenience stores. Others have large developments like the Millennium Library, Manitoba Hydro Place, Canada Life Centre, True North Square and the city’s tallest building at 300 Main. The Hudson’s Bay Co. building and the large parking lots at the eastern end represent key opportunities for impactful new development. When current construction is complete there will be almost 1,000 new homes adjacent to Graham Avenue, with 280 new hotel rooms, two new office towers, a food hall, restaurants and commercial space. With bold investment and a strong vision, we can build on this momentum and create a unified, pedestrian-focused public space that redefines the image of downtown.

There are inspiring examples of streets that have been transformed into linear parks, shared streets, and pedestrian promenades in cities across the world. If we look closer to home, Stephen Avenue Mall in Calgary is a pedestrian street that might be an informative precedent. Once the city’s main street, Stephen Avenue was closed to vehicles in 1973, and after many difficult years it is now downtown’s most active public space, lined with shops and restaurants in a concentration that creates an important critical mass of activity, even in today’s struggling downtown.

The City of Calgary recently hired Gehl, a world-renowned urban design firm from Denmark, to create a vision for the future of Stephen Avenue. Gehl approaches urban design through the lens of public life, creating public spaces that support social interaction between people. The plan recommends the following six strategic moves to guide Stephen Avenue to a successful future, principles that could provide an important insight for any transformation of Winnipeg’s Graham Avenue.

Branding the Avenue: Invest in a permanent redesign of the physical street with a cohesive palette and unified visual identity, including pavers, trees, colourful and flexible seating, wayfinding and lighting.

Connecting the Avenue: Build pedestrian priority intersections with raised crosswalks. Make strong connections to public transit and bike lanes that expand access throughout downtown. Connect skywalks (like the one that runs the length of Graham) directly to the sidewalk at several convenient and highly visible locations, pulling skywalk activity to street level. Calm vehicle traffic in other areas of downtown, including returning one-way streets back to two-way. Investigate other mobility options like bike-sharing, scooters or even a streetcar.