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’Over the moon’: longtime proponents of opening Portage and Main plan ‘crossing the street’ party

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2024/03/02/over-the-moon-long...

If the concrete barricades are torn down and Portage and Main reopens to pedestrians, you can expect Adam Dooley to be one of the first Winnipeggers to cross the storied intersection.

Dooley, who co-chaired the Vote Open campaign during a 2018 plebiscite that denied the reopening, joked about having a “crossing the street” party to celebrate the occasion.

“We will definitely be there on day 1, and I know there will be a lot of happy people,” he said. “Once the dust settles, people will applaud this. Even people who were four-square against it.”

Dooley and fellow supporters were pleased when Mayor Scott Gillingham announced Friday Portage and Main could reopen to pedestrians by summer 2025, following decades of debate.

“I was over the moon. It feels like something that has been a really long time coming,” said Alyson Shane, a digital marketing agency owner who was the official spokesperson of the Vote Open campaign. “It’s nice to see the city making changes that move us in a positive direction.”

The downtown intersection closed to foot traffic in 1979, after the city struck a 40-year deal — now expired — with a property developer who built an office tower and an underground mall.

In 2018’s non-binding plebiscite, 65 per cent of voters were against restoring pedestrian access.

Dooley and Shane said there was a lot of missing information or myths at that time, especially around the potential impacts on travel and safety.

When he ran for mayor in 2022, Gillingham was opposed to removing the barricades, saying it would “disrespectful” to ignore the results of the public vote.

He’s now in favour, after a new city staff report said it would cost $73 million to repair the leaking membrane under the concrete that protects a pedestrian concourse beneath the intersection.

Repairs would involve digging up parts of Portage and Main, which would cause traffic “chaos” for four to five years, the mayor said Friday.

Additional costly repairs would be necessary in 30 to 40 years.

“We have information today we did not have in 2018, and I did not have during the election in 2022,” said Gillingham.

If the report’s findings were available in 2018, the plebiscite’s result likely would have been closer, said Dooley, a public relations executive based in the Exchange District.

“When I read about the rationale (Friday), I thought this is a good, common sense policy decision,” he said.

In 2018, the Vote Open campaign heard two main concerns: that reopening Portage and Main would be a waste of money, and it would impede vehicular traffic.

The report states concourse repairs and maintenance would be costlier, said Dooley.

As for traffic impacts, people in the “vote yes” camp pointed to a consulting firm’s 2017 study which suggested only a few minutes would be added to most commutes.

The difference would have been negligible, said Shane.

Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed work and commuting patterns, and the city has been taking steps, including bus route changes, to improve traffic flow, said Dooley.

In 2017, the cost to reopen the intersection was estimated to be $11.6 million, about half of which was for the purchase of new buses.

City council could soon vote on a motion which calls for pedestrian access at Portage and Main — the city’s sixth-busiest downtown intersection — by 2025 to coincide with a new Winnipeg Transit route network.

Further study would find out how much it could cost to reopen the intersection.

Public works chair Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverley West) said the city budget’s road safety plan would provide funding and research to ensure the intersection is safe for pedestrians.

Busier downtown intersections are open to pedestrians, she noted.

The plan calls for the concourse to be permanently closed to the public.

It could cost $20 million to $50 million, and take up to five years to decommission the city’s portion of the concourse, said Gillingham.

Dooley said some questions are still to be answered.

“We don’t know what the final intersection will look like,” he said.

Supporters such as Shane believe a pedestrian-friendly junction will help to improve public safety and vibrancy downtown.

“It’s a really exciting and positive step for our city,” she said.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.camailto:chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca