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EDITORIAL

It’s been a long time coming — Portage and Main

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/editorials/2025/06/26/its-been-a-l...

IT’S been a while. Forty-six years, to be precise, since the last time a pedestrian (legally) traversed the corner of Portage and Main at street level.

That will change on Friday — to the great relief of many, and undoubtedly to the consternation of no small number, as well — when the city’s most iconic intersection is reopened to foot traffic for the first time since 1979.

How long has it been? Well, consider this: when the opening of the below-ground concourse (formally known at the Portage and Main Circus) forced pedestrians off the street in February 1979, the Happy Days spinoff sitcom Laverne and Shirley was the top-rated show on U.S. television, the low-budget street-gang thriller The Warriors was the No. 1 box-office movie and Rod Stewart’s

Do Ya Think I’m Sexy sat atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Yes, it’s been that long. Ironically, the decision to bar pedestrian traffic from the intersection — after more than a half-decade of city council debate and deliberation — was defended at the time as a move to revitalize Winnipeg’s downtown by streamlining vehicle traffic through one of its busiest interchanges. The prevailing mindset favoured cars over people, presumably in reaction to Winnipeg’s continuing outward spread.

The city’s primary business and shopping stretch, from Main Street west along Portage Avenue, had begun to lose its lustre; suburban sprawl was drawing residential population to the fringes and the creation of major shopping malls in St. Vital and Transcona redefined the retail experience for most Winnipeggers.

Downtown was struggling. Mega-project ideas for restoring its vitality were plentiful, including the addition of office towers at Portage and Main, creation of the aforementioned subterranean shopping concourse and construction of the massive Portage Place mall, but most — as visitors to the current version of downtown can readily attest — have proved fruitless.

The idea of reopening Portage and Main has been part of the public conversation for at least a couple of decades; in 2014, then-mayoral candidate Brian Bowman pledged to re-introduce foot traffic if elected, but once in office he opted to abide by the result of a 2018 plebiscite on the issue, in which two-thirds of voters (most of whom were from the city’s far-flung suburbs and likely seldom visited the intersection) rejected the notion of reopening.

Those who thought the issue was laid to rest received a rude awakening when a subsequent city report revealed it would cost $73 million to repair the leaky membrane underpinning the intersection, and that the work would disrupt above-ground traffic for up to five years. A massive rethinking of Portage and Main became a practical necessity rather than just a political- points opportunity.

Afforded the latitude to reconsider the question, current Mayor Scott Gillingham wisely chose to take things in another direction.

With a complete overhaul of public transit routing about to launch, and a major reimagining of Graham Avenue poised to reset the attitude of a major downtown component, the reopening of Portage and Main to pedestrian traffic now feels like the right move at the right (albeit long overdue) time.

Over the past several months, the familiar and decidedly unwelcoming brutalist barriers have been removed from the corners at Portage and Main. More traditional curbsides have been established, crosswalks have been painted and the necessary electronic signals have been installed.

And on Friday, a rather bold political step will result in the illumination of a “Walk” signal welcoming the return of actual steps — by people, who have once again, finally, been granted access to the city’s most famous intersection.

Portage and Main. It’s about time.