Winnipeg | Portage and Main

[pspeid]

The Free Press online has an article today titled "Vote on Studying Portage & Main Reopening Postponed Until Fall". I don't subscribe so I couldn't get past the paywall. Anyone have a chance to read this? From the title it sounds like some "uncharacteristic" dithering about P & M from city hall, but I could be wrong.

When oh when will this tragedy end??

[Wpg_Guy]

Originally Posted by pspeid

The Free Press online has an article today titled "Vote on Studying Portage & Main Reopening Postponed Until Fall". I don't subscribe so I couldn't get past the paywall. Anyone have a chance to read this? From the title it sounds like some "uncharacteristic" dithering about P & M from city hall, but I could be wrong.

When oh when will this tragedy end??

Vote on studying Portage & Main reopening postponed until fall

The City of Winnipeg won’t explore the impact of opening a street-level pedestrian crossing at Portage Avenue and Main Street just yet.

On Monday, council’s public works committee postponed a vote until October on ordering city staff to study the option.

Coun. Janice Lukes, the committee’s chairwoman, said she believes council should wait until public consultation is completed on a consultant’s recently released options to revamp the intersection, which propose everything from basic pavement enhancements to a sixth-floor-level circular walkway.

“Right now, we’ve got this public consultation going on. We don’t want to cloud the waters,” said Lukes.

While the consultant’s ideas don’t include an option to reopen Winnipeg’s most famous intersection to surface-level pedestrian traffic, Lukes said she expects many people who support that change will share their views.

Lukes said she expects foot traffic will one day be allowed at street level and she is personally open to the idea.

Coun. Sherri Rollins, who raised the motion to study that option now, noted a street-level crossing is notably absent from the “fanciful” designs the city is seeking public feedback on.

“We don’t have the basics of costs and impacts for the option of opening up the intersection and that seems to me, through the course of time, to be a big omission that I’d like you to fix today,” Rollins told the public works committee.

She suggested the new study should offer details on construction requirements, accessibility improvements, navigation, traffic impact, cost and other aspects of street-level access.

Rollins, whose ward stretches close to Portage and Main but doesn’t include the intersection, said downtown residents deserve to have easy access to cross the street near their homes, as many folks in other parts of the city do.

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breaki...tage-main-reopening-postponed-until-fall

[pspeid]

Thanks for posting that. I don't want to get TOO enthusiastic at this point, but it ALMOST sounds like our spineless, weak-willed, ineffectual, irresolute, timorous, faint-hearted, pusillanimous, craven, wimpish, all-wet city council MIGHT be looking for a way to open the blasted intersection?

Yeah, I'm probably reading too much into it right now, but I can't help wonder if the article from the Globe & Mail that exposed the foolish, dull, vacant, absurd, idiotic thought processes of the city council to the country might have actually shamed them into actually standing up to Browaty and doing what's best for the downtown and the city?

Wishful thinking, delusion, fantasy, sophistry on my part?

[dam_well]

All of the mockups in the public engagement survey still have the intersection "closed" but way easier to open up in the future than the current barriers. Seems like whoever is in charge of that study thinks opening the intersection will happen.

[wags_in_the_peg]

i played Frogger today to get to Lombard instead of walking down a block, almost got squished.

reminder open house 201 Portage tomorrow 11-2, come remind them you want it Open!

[wags_in_the_peg]

Gail Asper wants the barricades down! She makes some very very valid points

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/portage-and-main-pedestrian-debate-1.6837828

[damnedmenno]

Great article on why we should not be spending money on widening Kenaston that has been making the rounds also has a section on the ROI of opening Portage & Main.

https://www.dearwinnipeg.com/2023/05/09/the-road-expansion-lobby-doesnt-want-you-to-read-this/

Just as a reference, in 2017, a year before there was even talk of a plebiscite, the analytics firm State of Place did a study on the economic return of opening Portage and Main to pedestrians. At the time, their findings were that an investment of $7 million in various improvements to the intersection and surrounding blocks would yield economic returns of $126 million over 10 years, an $18 return on every dollar invested. That’s already $1 million better than the $125 million in returns predicted for the Kenaston widening, but at fraction of the cost, and in half the time, making it 345x more economically productive than adding lanes to Kenaston.

[esquire]

^ I'm all for opening P&M but this talk of massive economic returns seems extremely fanciful. $126 million... really.

Route 90 through River Heights is an absolute shambles so even if you don't change anything about it, just the replacements of the road surface, the southbound St. James Bridge and the new access points will probably cost a fortune on their own. And those aren't really optional expenses.

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ I'm all for opening P&M but this talk of massive economic returns seems extremely fanciful. $126 million... really.

Route 90 through River Heights is an absolute shambles so even if you don't change anything about it, just the replacements of the road surface, the southbound St. James Bridge and the new access points will probably cost a fortune on their own. And those aren't really optional expenses.

Considering the cost of residential buildings these days if Portage and Main opens and hypothetically in the next decade we get $126 million worth of buildings then it would be true. I mean 300 Main was like a $165 million economic return to P&M technically.

[esquire]

^ If one wanted to play devil's advocate they could say we got that investment without having to spend a dime on P&M. The state of P&M was immaterial in that case.

[bomberjet]

Harvard has said nothing will happen with the lot on Main St until the intersection is re-opened. So there is one direct benefit to the re-opening.

[thurmas]

Can we not just close down Winnipeg Square and make the cafes and shops attached to the outside of the current buildings in an enclosed bubble to protect during the winter time? So they are at street level.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Harvard has said nothing will happen with the lot on Main St until the intersection is re-opened. So there is one direct benefit to the re-opening.

If someone knocked on their door with a deal, they'd get something done barricades or no barricades. They just sank a pile of money into 201 Portage with the barricades up.

Look, I'm in favour of opening P&M to pedestrians because it's the obvious thing to do. But I don't expect some kind of bonanza to happen as a result. It'll make the area marginally better which might increase its appeal to developers. It's not going to create some sort of building boom on its own.

[wags_in_the_peg]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Can we not just close down Winnipeg Square and make the cafes and shops attached to the outside of the current buildings in an enclosed bubble to protect during the winter time? So they are at street level.

why can't both exist? no need to shut down the cafes below ground.

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

why can't both exist? no need to shut down the cafes below ground.

I don't mean shutting them down but relocating them to street level

[pspeid]

Article about P & M open house, from CBC news website:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/portage-and-main-virtual-reality-1.6839261

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by thurmas

I don't mean shutting them down but relocating them to street level

Winnipeg Square is well below ground level. It isn't simply a matter of cutting holes in the exterior walls but rather the whole development would have needed to be rebuilt. With the towers on top now that is unlikely to ever happen.

[hofnik]

Try it out: https://hubs.mozilla.com/PpbtSGH/portage-and-main-vr

[borkborkbork]

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breaki...osing-troubled-portage-and-main-stairway

"The City of Winnipeg is looking at demolishing the stairwell and working with staff of the nearby Richardson Building to open its concourse to the public during hours it would normally be closed.

On Tuesday, the property committee will discuss a recommendation that $1.65 million be paid to Richardson Centre Ltd. for the cost of removing the stairwell. It would conduct the work while constructing the adjacent Richardson Plaza.

An agreement would be signed to allow the public to access the concourse via the Richardson Building.

Mayor Scott Gillingham said he’s undecided and would wait to hear Tuesday’s discussion, but he called ensuring public access on par with what the city could provide “paramount” to his decision.

“Whether it’s through an access agreement with the property owner on that corner, or whether it’s through upgrading and maintaining that stairwell, we need to ensure that access is provided to the public,” he said."

[WinCitySparky]

Yeah that stairwell is the sketchiest shit ever