Winnipegger wants to 'take a jackhammer' to downtown pedestrian barricades
Sheena Goodyear | CBC Radio | Posted: May 9, 2023 10:31 PM | Last Updated: May 9, 2023
The intersection of Portage and Main has been closed to pedestrians since 1979
Gail Asper just wants to be able to cross the street.
The Winnipeg philanthropist works downtown, near the intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street, which has been closed to pedestrian traffic since 1979. People who want to cross it go underground.
But the intersection will soon undergo a multimillion-dollar revitalization to repair a leaky membrane that allows surface runoff to damage the underground pedestrian concourse.
As part of the project, the city plans to take down the concrete barricades that block pedestrians and replace them with something more esthetically pleasing. Lots of bells and whistles are on the table for the redesign, including lookout towers, a "sky garden" and a "monumental" decorative orb.
But one thing that isn't among the proposals is allowing people to cross the intersection at street level.
It's an issue many Winnipeg residents — and city councillors — are divided on. But Asper knows exactly where she stands.
She's the chair of the Asper Foundation charity, and she spoke to As It Happens host Nil Köksal. Here is part of their conversation.
Gail, when you look at those barriers that are meant to block pedestrians at Portage and Main, what do you wish you could do?
I wish I could take a jackhammer and take them down myself after hours, discreetly at night. And I think about that all the time.
A lot of us have heard about Portage and Main and what it means to Winnipeg and Winnipeggers. But when you're walking there, just take me along on that foot commute.
When you descend to street level at Portage and Main, there are four office towers. And if you want to get across the street to any of them, you cannot.
You have to either walk a very, very, very long block north, and cross there and then come back — or you go into the dreaded and much feared underground.
And there's escalators and elevators and stairs to take you down. And then you wander into this Byzantine maze with poor signage as you stumble along trying to find your destination. And you often have to go down three or four stairs and then cross over a little hallway and then up three or four stairs. So if you're in a wheelchair, it's really, really challenging.
Do you ever just walk across the street?
Oh, yeah. That's what normal people do.
I just generally pop out the door, jaywalk across the street, which is very easy to do because there's .... often very long waits with stopped traffic. So I just weave my way through the traffic, jump onto the barricade in the middle of the street, and then pop across the street to where my destination awaits.
Dangerous, no?
People are driving very slowly. Like, there's already a light there, so it's very slow traffic.
The only time I felt a little unsafe was when there's maybe some snow piled on the barricades, so it's a bit slippery. And, yes, I wouldn't want to jump on that barricade and slide under the wheels of a passing truck. But generally, it's never been a problem.
And how much time does it take to do it your way, as opposed to going underground?
Twenty seconds.
And if you went underground?
It can take about five minutes. And that's if you don't have someone in a wheelchair.
This first started to really irk me about 30 years ago when I would be taking my grandmother, who was wheelchair-bound, to do her errands at Portage and Main. And I started realizing how challenging it was for people in wheelchairs.
You have to kind of wander around to find that elevator ... and then you begin the odyssey of navigating the three steps down, three steps up situation…. There are lifts that you have to take to go down, but often they're not working, which is really challenging.
WATCH: Navigating Portage and Main in a wheelchair:
The argument against reopening [the intersection to pedestrians] — one of them, at least — is that it would lead to more congestion downtown, and people don't think it's worth tying up traffic.
I certainly don't think a downtown should be a freeway to get home. No other downtown, probably in the world, views itself as an escape route to the suburbs.
There was a non-binding plebiscite about reopening Portage and Main back in 2018. Sixty-five per cent of voters at that time said no. So are you in a small minority?
As far as I'm concerned, the people who are most impacted are people like me who work downtown and have to navigate, get to meetings and so on. The people, the merchants downtown, all four office tower owners, want the barricades taken down.
It was done as a city initiative to encourage downtown development, and [the city] promised the real estate developers that, if they would locate an office tower at Portage and Main, they would promise to sentence we pedestrians and citizens to the bowels of the Earth for time immemorial so we would be forced to march by the merchants who are going in the underground walkway.
Some people prefer, you know, in the cold temperatures to be underground, don't they?
Sure, of course. And guess what? In Toronto, you have the option. You can be at Bay and Bloor and go underground. But I prefer to go above ground. So other cities give people the choice.
I'm, on a daily basis when I'm downtown, giving directions to poor visitors and business people trying to get to their meetings from out of town, who find the route unintelligible and off-putting. So I've thought a lot about this, obviously, and I think to be more welcoming to people, you have to give them the choice.
The current situation at Portage and Main is quite embarrassing.
We should mention you come from a family with deep ties to the city. You run a philanthropic organization there as well. You have access to things that many others don't. So when you do talk to other people in the area — and you've hinted at this in our conversation so far — people who aren't as privileged ... as you are, what are they telling you?
I know that the merchants — the people who have small businesses downtown on the street, the restaurants, the coffee places — they feel neglected and they don't understand why their needs to have pedestrian traffic walking by their businesses have taken a backseat to the merchants who are underground.
I'm not an urban planner, but I understand from an urban planning perspective, those barricades divide our downtown, the Exchange [District] and the Forks area. So they cut into two these two important sections. So people who are living downtown in that area are essentially prevented from accessing the whole of their neighbourhood.
It's like we've got this dividing wall between the two sides. And if we could take that down, you could have a much more vibrant neighbourhood.
I think we really need inspired civic leadership to recognize that this is no way to run our city.