St. Boniface residents decry 'hurtful' and 'obscene' Marion Street widening

Dozens of St. Boniface residents opposed to a now-doomed plan to widen Marion Street lambasted Winnipeg's public works department and consultants under its employ for the way the $566-million project was planned.

​City council's public works committee spent five hours considering a city recommendation to cancel the Marion project and come up with a less expensive and smaller project in its place. The project would have required the city to incur $20 million a year of additional debt financing.

• City told to scrap $566M Marion Street widening plan

Even though the committee was poised to cancel the project, residents and business owners took time off work to give Couns. Janice Lukes (South Winnipeg-St. Norbert), Shawn Dobson (St. Charles), Devi Sharma (Old Kildonan) and Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) an earful. 

They explained they vehemently opposed the project for a litany of reasons that included the proposed expropriation of dozens of properties to make way for the construction of a four-leaf clover they felt was vastly out of scale with residential neighbourhoods.

The opponents said the project would have destroyed their neighbourhood, vowed to vote against mayor Brian Bowman and St. Boniface Coun. Matt Allard in the next election and used words like godless, hurtful and obscene to describe a public-consultation process even committee chairwoman Lukes described as lacking.

"I want to apologize for the horrible consultation process," Lukes said in the council chamber, where the public works committee was held due to the large number of delegates who showed up to express their dissatisfaction.

• Marion Street widening plan panned by some St. Boniface residents​

Public works director Lester Deane said while he was satisfied with the breadth of public-consultation work conducted by consulting firm MMM Group, it was clear residents did not agree.

Georgia Skarpias, who owns Hair Passion on Marion Street, said her neighbours have been scared of losing their businesses and homes.

She said she is upset the city spent roughly $1 million planning the project to date.

"I'm glad they listened to us," she said. "Nobody was listening to us, at the beginning. We fought a year."

Skarpias will have to wait another two months, as the public works committee voted to put off a decision on the Marion widening until November.

The holdup is taking place because the committee was unclear whether MMM Group can or should be awarded a subsequent public consultation-contract about other options for widening Marion Street.

Deane and Winnipeg transportation manager Luis Escobar said a street widening with a reduced scale will not offer the city the same benefits in terms of freeing the flow of east-west traffic between St. Boniface and Lagimodiere Boulevard.

But they said they recommended the city abandon the $566-million version of the project, anyway, partly because of public opposition.

Lukes countered that Deane's report to council cited financial reasons for abandoning the plan. She asked how it was possible for the design to balloon to more than $500 million.

The Marion Street widening was the city's No. 2 infrastructure priority, after the construction of the Waverley underpass, which is proceeding. Ottawa was poised to contribute money to the project, though Lukes noted it was the former Harper government that made that tentative commitment.

Lukes said the city will reassess its infrastructure-funding priorities. She also mused it may be time to make an independent transportation authority responsible for major infrastructure-funding decisions.

In 2011, the city's Transportation Master Plan rated the replacement of the Louise Bridge as a higher priority than the Waverley underpass. A 2015 city council vote placed Waverley and Marion on top of the city's wish list.