Winnipeg mayor favours reopening Portage and Main after report warns fixing intersection would cost $73M
Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham now favours re‐ opening Portage and Main to pedestrians, CBC News has learned, following a re‐ port warning repairs to the existing intersection would cost $73 million and cause four to five years of con‐ struction-induced traffic delays.
The mayor's office has called a news conference for Friday morning without de‐ claring the subject matter. Multiple sources tell CBC News the mayor plans to an‐ nounce he would like to re‐ open the intersection to pedestrians in 2025 and per‐ manently close the circular walkway underground.
CBC Manitoba is live streaming the news confer‐ ence here.
Gillingham's office de‐ clined comment. A draft ver‐ sion of a council-commis‐ sioned report, obtained by CBC News, pegs the cost of repairing the intersection at $73 million, not including re‐ pairs to the underground concourse itself or a new transit station the city plans to build at or near the inter‐ section.
Those costs, the report states, are due to the need to keep the underground walk‐ way open while the city up‐ grades the intersection.
Those upgrades include $29 million for excavating and replacing the membrane that protects the walkway from the elements, $13 mil‐ lion worth of work on water and sewer pipes, $13 million for new paving, trees and barricades above ground, $12 million for managing traffic during the construc‐ tion period, and $6 million for building new stairs and elevators to access the un‐ derground concourse.
If new elevators and stairs aren't included in the up‐ grades, the report says three property owners at the inter‐ section would need to agree to provide access of their own to the underground con‐ course - and that would only shave $6 million from the es‐ timated project cost.
"The public service recog‐ nizes that $73 million is a sig‐ nificant commitment of pub‐ lic dollars, most of which is associated with keeping the underground concourse in operation," acting urban planning manager James Veitch writes in the report.
"It is also recognized that this is not a one-time fix even a new membrane would have a service life of approxi‐ mately 40 years, meaning that this undertaking would need to be repeated in the future."
The report explains the construction disruptions would last four to five years because the entire intersec‐ tion would be affected.
"Because the membrane is on the exterior of the structure, work requires complete excavation of the intersection," Veitch writes.
"North-south traffic move‐ ment would be maintained with reduced capacity, includ‐ ing the right-only turn to westbound Portage."
The report states Portage and Main is 10 per cent less busy than it was when the city studied reopening it to pedestrians in 2016 but re‐ mains Winnipeg's sixthbusiest intersection.
Approximately 72,000 ve‐ hicles pass through the inter‐ section every weekday, the report states, adding about 2,100 people cross below it during a two-hour peak peri‐ od in the middle of week‐ days.
Should the city opt not to fix the intersection as it is and simply repair it without keeping the underground concourse open, the cost would be in the $20 million to $50 million range, subject to further study - plus $10 million to remove barricades and install sidewalks as well as pedestrian traffic signals, the report states.
Portage and Main has been closed to pedestrians since 1979, when the under‐ ground circus opened. Former mayor Glen Murray sought to reopen the inter‐ section and held a contest to redesign the intersection. That plan was shelved by his successor, Sam Katz, who stated he wished to honour a 40-year deal with adjacent property owners to keep the intersection closed.
Katz's successor, Brian Bowman, initially promised to reopen the intersection to pedestrians but shied away after a majority of Winnipeg‐ gers who voted in a nonbinding plebiscite in 2018 in‐ dicated they opposed the idea.
Gillingham, who was elected mayor in 2022, has expressed little enthusiasm in the past for reopening the intersection. During the 2022 civic election, Gillingham said he was not interested in re‐ visiting the issue.
The report about repairs to the intersection was inten‐ ded to make traversing Portage and Main "a more welcoming, vibrant, and equi‐ table experience," Veitch wrote, in a nod to the inter‐ section's current overnight closures, which make it im‐ passable to people who use wheelchairs.