Plus-15 planner retires
City walkways renowned around world
A Calgary planner whose working life was devoted to administering the world’s longest elevated pedestrian walkway is walking off into the sunset.
Ray Ference spent nearly three decades of his 40-year city planning career ushering in Calgary’s Plus-15 bridges.
To date, that’s 63 bridges, eight more in the making, and a total of 18 kilometres of rain, sleet and snow-free walkways.
“It was an opportunity that not everybody gets,” said Ference, who retired last week from the city’s planning department.
“We’ve become worldrenowned. Before we were a little city nestled in the foothills of the Rockies. We were just Calgary.”
Now, the entire world has come knocking to learn more about covered bridges — built about 15 feet above ground — connecting bustling buildings.
City planners from China, Japan, Korea and the United Arab Emirates are among those seeking Calgary’s expertise on building sheltered pedestrian sky walks.
“They’re great socializing spaces for talking and meeting. That’s what people are recognizing,” said Ference, who has had to fend off criticism that the elevated tunnels sapped the city of its downtown street scene.
He has even endured the system being spoofed in Gary Burns’ 2000 indie film way-down town, which portrayed the walkways in the city’s core as an ant farm for office workers deprived of fresh air.
“The whole downtown completely connected — that would be great,” Ference said. “I can’t see it stopping. I can’t see this city not continuing to flourish.
The Plus-15 system was conceived and designed by Calgary architect Harold Hanen, who worked for the city’s planning department from 1966 to 1969.
Hanen borrowed the idea of the pedestrian skywalk from Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota.
Calgary’s first Plus-15 bridge was installed in 1970, connecting Calgary Place to what is now the Westin hotel.
That was the same year Ference landed in Calgary from Selkirk, Man., to attend Mount Royal College.
By 1972, he was working part-time with the city, and moved over to handle Plus-15s in 1985.
Today there are 63 bridges and 18 kilometres of walkways connecting dozens of downtown buildings, including oil and gas companies and department stores.
Eight more bridges have been approved, including one that takes the shape of a curve.
Ference is also credited with upgrading the system’s 60 pedestal maps to make them interactive.
With the touch of a finger, the screens provide directions to any building within the winding Plus-15 network.
“I see potential that we can do more attractive bridges than we have in the past,” said city planning manager Sonny Tomic.
“I see huge opportunity for us to be known for beautiful bridges and attractive Plus-15 system, too.”
Tomic is part of a group revamping the city’s Plus-15 policy.
“It’s a balancing act,” Tomic said. “In the next six months we’ll have a better idea we’re working with.”
Since the policy has stayed nearly the same since the 1980s, “we need a little bit of an update,” the planning manager said.
Bringing public art, performers and even winter gardens into nearby building lobbies are all improvements designed to keep the elevated walkways evolving.
“Almost all major lobbies of office buildings have some amazing spaces and we are keen to continue getting amazing spaces,” Tomic said.
“Everything working together, that’s our aim. But still our priority is to open public streetscapes. It’s both ways.”