Winnipeg | Portage and Main

[The Jabroni]

Haven't crossed there yet, but drove through there in the evening and there were people crossing, as you would expect at any other intersection around downtown and around the city.

Never thought I'd see the day, but today it finally happened!

[wags_in_the_peg]

Originally Posted by WinCitySparky

They should allow some street top ad boards or such for the pedestrians to be aware/reminded of the businesses down below

1000% agree, even permanent lit up signs w arrow pointing down. Majority of non-downtown workers have no idea Booster Juice, Freshhi, 3 thai/chinese, 3 sushi, 529 burger, Tim's, empty cup, etc. I thinkbit can help them and make them nice looking at same time.

[wags_in_the_peg]

I ended up driving through around 645pm and there was still about dozen people hanging around taking pics while crossing. It's funny how this has turned into a bit of a "historic" event.

[KnoxfordGuy]

Fredericton, NB here. Been keeping an eye on this reopening. So, the tunnels will remain open?

[Mr Tall Forehead]

Originally Posted by KnoxfordGuy

Fredericton, NB here. Been keeping an eye on this reopening. So, the tunnels will remain open?

The underground will remain open for now.

Apparently the waterproof membrane that protects the tunnel needs to be replaced at a $73 million dollar cost and it’s unknown who will foot the bill. The uncertainty with the future of the underground was part of the rationale for opening up the intersection to pedestrians (or at least the rationale given to the auto centric opposition ).

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by trueviking

There’s not a lot of businesses left down there.

we should put some signage for these buisnes as theres a barber shop sushi a tienda type store still there

[Wpg_Guy]

Future of the underground concourse weighs on biz owners’ minds
By: Tyler Searle
Posted: 4:22 PM CDT Friday, Jun. 27, 2025

Amid the fanfare surrounding the reopening of Portage Avenue and Main Street to pedestrians, questions remain about the future of the underground concourse and the businesses in it.

The Portage and Main Circus has many shops and restaurants and is connected to a larger underground network downtown. The concourse has a leaky membrane that no longer protects it from above ground moisture.

The cost of repairing it is estimated at $73 million, said Mayor Scott Gillingham.



Speaking to reporters after opening the street-level crossing, he stressed a decision has not yet been made over whether the circus will remain open or be fully or partially closed. City officials are awaiting for engineering reports and consultations with business owners, he said.

“The underground concourse will not close anytime soon. We are still doing some work related to that,” Gillingham said.

The mayor said reintroducing pedestrian traffic to the intersection will not have a negative impact on the businesses below ground.

“There’s still winter months coming… I believe that people will still frequent businesses below grade.”

Kate Fenske, CEO of Downtown Winnipeg BIZ, echoed that sentiment.

“They have their long-term customers, and (the underground) is still a critical piece of infrastructure that allows connectivity,” She said. “We’ve actually heard from workers and property owners, the businesses there, that it is so important it stays open… and I think there are going to be options to look at that.”

Haley Yurman, brand and marketing leader at Empty Cup, said she’s not concerned. The Winnipeg-based coffee shop has a location in the underground concourse.

“It’s good for business to have more people out and about downtown,” she said.

Yurman and her colleagues joined a crowd celebrating the reopening of the intersection. They carried signs that read “Still brewing one level down” in large, capital letters.

Harveer Chahal and Murtaza Mehdi were among the customers who stopped by the coffee shop as the crowd gathered above. Both men work in a high-rise linked to the underground circus and shop at the stores multiple times a week.



“We don’t really go outside,” Chahal said.

“We get our food, coffee, A&W sometimes, or sushi. It’s much safer here, I’d say, compared to outside.”

Business owner Eric Chi said he expects little impact to his business because most of his customers come from the buildings and companies attached to the underground mall.

Chi has sold kimbap and other Korean snacks from his store, Eshel Tree, in the underground for more than one year. He signed a five-year contract with the city, and was told at the time there was no immediate plan to close the concourse.

Since then, rumours and speculation have been swirling among business owners in the underground concourse, as they await news on whether the city plans to keep it open or shut it for good, he said.

“Of course it’s concerning, but I just want to know as soon as possible so that I can take my next step,” he said. “Whichever decision (the city) makes, I support it. I’m not against the decision, my only hope is they decide something for the better, for the community,” he said.

Free Press

[Wpg_Guy]

‘Felt great, but also unremarkable:’ pedestrians cross Portage and Main for first time in decades
By: Tyler Searle
Posted: 9:29 AM CDT Friday, Jun. 27, 2025



Winnipeg’s landmark intersection, Portage Avenue and Main Street, officially opened to pedestrian traffic for the first time in more than four decades Friday morning.

No longer will pedestrians be forced to walk for blocks or duck down into the underground concourse to cross the street. Concrete barriers installed at the intersection in 1979 have been a source of contention between pedestrians and motorists.

“Today, we’re bringing an end to 46 years of debating whether or not people should be allowed to cross the street,” Mayor Scott Gillingham said, moments before opening the roadway to foot traffic.



“Now, reopening this intersection isn’t a silver bullet. It’s not the answer for all of Winnipeg’s downtown challenges, but it’s important for the progress that we are making, step by step, block by block, to build a downtown for everyone.”

A large crowd crammed onto the northeast corner, eager to hear the mayor’s remarks and witness what he described as another “historic moment” for the spot.

Traffic roared past and people jostled for space, waved signs and cheered before they rushed forward to test the newly painted crosswalks and signals.

Gillingham said the reopening would bolster safety and accessibility downtown, and is part of the effort to strengthen the inner city.

Critics have argued the concrete barriers prevent collisions and traffic delays. Advocates said forcing people underground created unnecessary challenges for pedestrians and people with limited mobility.

The debate was settled in 2023, after a city report estimated it would cost $73 million to replace the leaky membrane protecting the underground business concourse. City council voted to reopen crossings last year, and construction began in December.

The work included removing the barriers; installing new traffic signals, streetlights, sidewalks and curbs; and introducing new transit stops. Signal timings have been adjusted, some traffic lanes have been changed and pedestrians can cross in all directions.

Superintendent Chris Ritz, who oversaw the project on behalf of construction company M.D. Steele, said the effort was completed on time, within the $21-million budget and with minimal impact to traffic over the past eight months.

Construction crews encountered some challenges, including a badly deteriorated foundation beneath the northwest corner and a pair of “unknown vaults” in the southeast and southwest corners that required significant structural repairs.

“Despite these surprises, we knew that the June 27 date was important and we needed to get this met,” Ritz.



City officials wanted the project completed by that date, so the reopening could coincide with the overhaul of the Winnipeg Transit system, set to take effect Sunday, Gillingham said.

While the ribbon-cutting was not official until around 11 a.m., supporters of the move gathered hours earlier to watch as construction crews cleaned up debris from newly finished sidewalks amid the morning rush hour.

“This intersection being closed has been such a chasm or an abyss in the middle of the city. Really, it just takes away from people being able to move,” said Emma Durand-Wood, a proponent of the Vote Open movement, which has long advocated for removing the barriers.

Durand-Wood had her two children and bicycle in tow as she mingled with Vote Open supporters and other bystanders. They cheered on pedestrians who crossed the intersection before the official opening, stepping past temporary orange barricades and seizing the opportunity to cross between traffic signals.

“I already crossed last night,” Durand-Wood said, smiling. “It felt great, but also, like, completely unremarkable.”



Gillingham said the barriers were erected as part of a 40-year deal to shutter the intersection to foot traffic and drive pedestrians to the businesses in the underground concourse.

“We were blocking life and economic activity from this intersection for 46 years and it’s preposterous when you think about that. All for the sake of a bad deal,” said Adam Dooley, the spokesperson for the Vote Open campaign.

“This is a victory for the Winnipeggers in the 1970s who were against this. It’s a victory for the businesses in the area that wanted it open, for the residents, and for people with accessibility issues.”

A woman named Isabel, who declined to give her last name, said she worked near the intersection when she was a teenager — before it closed to pedestrian traffic.

“I loved it. There was so much activity here and it was energy and people were on the streets. To me, once (the barriers) came, that was the beginning of the end. I’m so glad that I got to see this come back.”

Free Press

[Wpg_Guy]

Opening of intersection proof that ‘Peg can change
By: Jen Zoratti
Posted: 2:45 PM CDT Friday, Jun. 27, 2025

Only in Winnipeg could something so ordinary — so pedestrian — as crossing the street become a historical event witnessed by hundreds.

And yet, on Friday morning, that’s exactly what happened.

The day many Winnipeggers have been waiting — and hoping, advocating and voting — for had arrived: the intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street, the Crossroads of Canada, the iconic, debated, maligned, politicized, romanticized heart of our city, was finally opened back up to pedestrians for the first time since its closure in 1979.



I was born in 1985, so for longer than I’ve been alive, Portage and Main has been for cars, not people. Our most famous intersection became our most infamous — for its concrete, bunker-like barricades, for the almost comically convoluted way one had to get across it. For too long, the heart of our city was a hard, closed, inaccessible thing.

And then, on a gorgeous morning in June, it opened — both ceremoniously and unceremoniously.

Hours before the “official” opening at 10:30 a.m. — before Mayor Scott Gillingham crossed Main Street to Randy Bachman’s Portage and Main (the slow version) — when the pedestrian signals were still covered and the temporary barricades were still in place, people were, in fact, crossing Portage and Main.

As if they’ve been doing it every morning. As if it were any morning.

Office workers carrying takeout cups of coffee unknowingly made history by being among the first to traverse the freshly painted zebra crossings. A crew of construction workers in their neon safety vests crossed it — Abbey Road-style — to sweep away the remaining construction debris.

It wasn’t long before a large crowd formed to hear the mayor speak, filled with Winnipeggers eager to be part of their city’s history. So large, in fact, it threatened to spill onto the streets and people had to be reminded to move away from the road.

And then, there they were, without fanfare: walk symbols, illuminated, on Portage and Main. A thing like that. Everyday and historic. Ordinary and extraordinary. Unremarkable and remarkable.

I suppose, technically, Portage and Main is just an intersection. But it’s always been more than that — even when, for a long while, it felt like even less than that.

Portage and Main has always represented vision and potential and possibility — both realized and unrealized. If historical editorial cartoons are any measure, people were as vociferously opposed to its closure in 1979 as they were to its reopening in 2018.

Witnessing the reopening was a joyful, energizing experience, because Winnipeggers were excited to be in a place that, for so long, they really couldn’t be — save for under very specific, usually Jets-related circumstances.

There was applause and good-natured honking, hugs and shoulder-slaps. Business people and babies, dogs and bikes. Walking on Sunshine blaring from a speaker and sirens blaring from emergency vehicles because it’s still a city centre, after all.

A woman, positioned in full view of the bank of media cameras, held a bright green sign that simply read “Finally!!!!”

Portage and Main is just a starting point. There are other projects and plans that are changing the city. And that’s just it: Portage and Main is proof that Winnipeg can, indeed, change.

Under a big blue Prairie sky, reflected in skyscraper glass, we didn’t have to imagine a vibrant future for our downtown because, for the first time in a long time, we could actually see a glimpse of it.



As the festivities wound down and the crowd started to disperse, Portage and Main began its new life as “just an intersection” that will probably never look that clean again. But Friday showed us what’s possible. Look toward any corner and you could see the parties and protests and pop-ups. The people.

We wanted to be able to walk through Portage and Main, that’s true. But maybe being there — actually being there — felt so good because now there’s a place to be.

Winnipeg Free Press

[Wpg_Guy]

People, profit intersect at Portage and Main
By: Niigaan Sinclair
Posted: 6:12 PM CDT Friday, Jun. 27, 2025

Since 1862, the intersection of Main Street and Portage Avenue in Winnipeg has been a space split between the competing forces of people and profit.

During the early years, there were fights about how to build roads large enough so people could travel through the area while accommodating the competitive interests of businesses moving in and blocking the thoroughfares.

In the end, the then-governor and council of Assiniboia chose a balance between the two, declaring the intersecting roads would follow the original oxcart paths, parallel to the rivers, and be “a full two chain (132 foot)” across.

The decree also stated that any business blocking the paths in and out of the intersection would have to make way by 1882.

This idea though, was not new; a balance between multiple interests has always been how Portage and Main works.

For centuries, the area was a stopping place along a north-south trading route traveled by Cree and Anishinaabe peoples and a west-east route journeyed by Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples — all of whom joined together to reside in a vast city the Cree called Nestawaya, or “Three Points.”



Here, Indigenous peoples lived, traded, and forged treaty — conducting business with one another for centuries.

Life in Nestawaya wasn’t perfect (Anishinaabe and Dakota peoples were well known for their wars, for example) but, at the best of times, the nations in what is now Portage and Main found ways to forge peace.

It’s no surprise, then, that balancing competing interests solved Portage and Main’s first conflict. Over a century, compromise, commitment, and inclusivity has been how Portage and Main has functioned the best.

The corner has witnessed bustling crowds, paths of streetcars and exponential economic growth — all of which inspired infrastructure and jobs that helped build a city.

In the decades after Winnipeg was founded in 1873, the area saw the building of nearby Union Station in 1911, Eaton’s department store in 1905, and the Hudson Bay building in 1926.

At Portage and Main, there came the Bank of Montreal building on the southeast corner (built in 1913), the 34-storey Richardson building on the northeast corner (1969), the Commodity Exchange Tower on the northwest corner (1979) and the five-storey Scotiabank building on the southwest corner (1979).



At the same time, the area was the meeting place where citizens celebrated the end of wars, met kings and princesses, and the Winnipeg Jets signed superstar hockey players.

Finding the balance between people and profit was always the way of Portage and Main — until one side was chosen over the other.

Starting in the 1960s, city planners sought to create a downtown economic hub, based on the idea that forcing foot traffic to travel underground into a warm, enclosed, commercial concourse would increase vehicle flow and support economic development.

That idea became real with the Circus, an underground circular facility that connected all four corners of Portage and Main. After the vision was passed in 1979, all overground movement in the intersection was closed, with barriers built to force citizens below.

Well, some of them.

There was no longer any place for the poor or racialized at Portage and Main.

Profit became the only language of the primary intersection of the city.

For decades, downtown became a transactional place.

For the wealthy, it was a place for business, not a place to live, love, and foster relationships.

Those who did live there were met with a lifeless set of barriers, concrete, and freezing cold wind.

This was especially true of Portage and Main’s first inhabitants.

In the 1960s, Indigenous peoples began to return to the space after suffering for decades under brutal policies that controlled movement and commerce — instilling poverty and marginalization in their lives.

Unwelcome in the Circus, Indigenous peoples became the primary inhabitants of the overground, creating a stark divide between societies below and above.

This separation caused division and a deep sense of difference and denial — until the decay caused by both became too much.

Portage and Main became a symbol of what it means to choose one interest over another, money over relationships, and profit over people.

That is, until this unsustainable vision ended.

Now, the intersection has reopened, and, with it, new questions on how to balance people and profit.

A new path for an intersection in a very old centre; a place that has thrived by finding balance, not choosing one path over another.

Winnipeg Free Press

[Wpg_Guy]

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[Wpg_Guy]

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[Authentic_City]

Originally Posted by Mr Tall Forehead

The underground will remain open for now.

Apparently the waterproof membrane that protects the tunnel needs to be replaced at a $73 million dollar cost and it’s unknown who will foot the bill. The uncertainty with the future of the underground was part of the rationale for opening up the intersection to pedestrians (or at least the rationale given to the auto centric opposition ).

We should pitch the repair/replacement of the waterproof membrane and maintenance of the underground concourse as a historic nation-building project, and seek federal funding from Carney.

[trueviking]

The likely scenario is that the concourse is partially closed but Richardson and TD will still be connected.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by Mr Tall Forehead

Gabe is an absolute legend.

I remember when he first started dancing at games during a Jets vs Nucks playoff series in 92 or 93. He used to have dance offs during stoppages in play against a guy everyone called the 'Dancing Ref' (younger, blond skinny dude in a ref's jersey).

The crowd at the old Winnipeg Arena definitely preferred Gabe and he hasn't looked back since.

Gabe has been a fixture on the Winnipeg sports scene since at least 1983. He sat in the same section as my family, a few rows down at the old CanadInns Stadium on. Not knowing anything about the guy, my Dad had remarked "looks like that guy has had a few too many beers."

By 1987, Gabe was dancing near the entrances of mid field of the West side. The Bombers even gave him a free uniform with "Gabe" on the back. This predated the Dancing Gabe schtick the Jets gave him, which was taken from the Simpsons "Dancing Homer" episode.

[Biff]

The neat thing about Gabe is, he has probably been to/seen more sports events than most people on the planet. For someone with his issues, he sure has carved out a pretty amazing life. I can probably count on one hand the number of events that I have been to over the years where I haven't seen Gabe there. He really is a treasure for the City.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by Mr Tall Forehead

Gabe is an absolute legend.

I remember when he first started dancing at games during a Jets vs Nucks playoff series in 92 or 93. He used to have dance offs during stoppages in play against a guy everyone called the 'Dancing Ref' (younger, blond skinny dude in a ref's jersey).

The crowd at the old Winnipeg Arena definitely preferred Gabe and he hasn't looked back since.

Gabe has been a fixture on the Winnipeg sports scene since at least 1983. He sat in the same section as my family, a few rows down. Not knowing anything about the guy, my Dad had remarked "looks like that guy has had a few too many beers."

By 1987, Gabe was dancing near the entrances of mid field of the West side. The Bombers even gave him a free uniform with "Gabe" on the back. This predated the Dancing Gabe schtick the Jets gave him, which was taken from the Simpsons "Dancing Homer" episode.

[bon_vivant]

I was waiting at the light on Portage and Main. A happy elderly couple was walking across the street. They seemed to be enjoying the simple fact that they could cross there. It was a beautiful sight. I used to complain that if the Berlin wall could come down, surely this can. And finally it did. Sure, it's not as pretty as the renderings (what is, frankly) but the fact that this has actually happened is a big deal for a city so staunchly opposed to change. Those who cried carmageddon will see that it's a non issue.

[trueviking]

It’s so nice. It’s just normal. People walking around everywhere. The back has become the front.

Now we need to get rid of those semi trailers. It’s crazy how many go through there. You notice way more as a pedestrian.

[The Jabroni]

Originally Posted by trueviking

It’s so nice. It’s just normal. People walking around everywhere. The back has become the front.

Now we need to get rid of those semi trailers. It’s crazy how many go through there. You notice way more as a pedestrian.

Yup. The semis need to be diverted away from Portage and Main.

Of course, the folks over at Manitoba Trucking Association will cry foul, just by us mentioning that heavy tractor trailer traffic needs to be diverted would be grounds for them to raise their tire irons.