Proposed bridge over Pembina Highway would be ‘huge’

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/proposed-pedestrian- and-cycling-bridge-over-pembina-highway-will-be-huge- huge-huge-420783833.html

BICYCLISTS and pedestrians heading to a Winnipeg Blue Bombers game or classes at the University of Manitoba may be two years away from having a quicker path to get there with their own $12-million bridge across Pembina Highway.

If approved, the Bishop Grandin Walk-Bike Bridge Over Pembina Highway project would open in spring 2019, and the city is holding a workshop to get feedback from the public next month.

Coun. Janice Lukes (South Winnipeg — St. Norbert) called the project “huge.”

“There will be a bridge for rapid transit buses (over Bishop Grandin) and a bridge for bicyclists and pedestrians and then, when the bicyclists get to Barley Brothers (restaurant), they all go up and over from berm to berm across Pembina Highway,” Lukes said on Friday.

“There is a big push for this. It is applicable for federal funding.”

Lukes — a longtime advocate for bike paths — said it would make an area of heavy traffic and multiple lanes safer for cyclists, noting there has already been one bike fatality there.

Dick Stevenson, 69, was cycling to a Winnipeg Blue Bombers exhibition game in 2014 when he was hit and killed by a car on Pembina Highway near Bishop Grandin Boulevard.

The new bridge would connect the Bishop Grandin Greenway across Pembina Highway so bicyclists would be able to cycle from the Sage Creek subdivision on the easter side of the city to Fort Whyte Alive on the western side.

Lukes said the bridge would make it easier for people in nearby neighbourhoods to get to new Southwest Rapid Transitway stations where they can securely park their bikes.

The city says in a section of a report that the bridge may look “pretty long” because it has to be built using current accessibility standards. As well, it is being built with safety in mind by using lighting and connecting pathways and making sure bridge users would be visible to motorists and sidewalk users.

Construction is expected to begin as early as March if city council approves the project.

The workshop is being held in the Sky Deck Event Centre at the south end of Investors Group Field on May 11, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Free parking is available in the university’s U lot at the south end of the stadium.

For information, visit winnipeg. ca/Bishop Walk Bike Bridge

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca