Time to demolish the barricades
Reopening Portage and Main would help invigorate Winnipeg's downtown
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/02/2016 (2995 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
For many years, Manhattan’s wide avenues and major crosstown streets were not very pedestrian-friendly. Sure, the density and diversity of the built environment meant New York was always the great and dynamic city it is now, but much of the street space itself had been fashioned to move vehicles as quickly as possible. This remains true today in many places in Manhattan, where vehicle congestion can be obnoxious during peak hours, and dangerous in off-peak hours.
So when Tim Tompkins from the Times Square Alliance speaks in Winnipeg today about the lessons learned since New York City closed five blocks of Broadway at Times Square to vehicles in 2009, he won’t be speaking about something that came easily. He will be speaking of what was seen as a radical affront to that city’s status quo that did not come without vocal criticism from many Times Square businesses and the city’s taxi industry.
Tompkins will be hosted by the Downtown BIZ as part of an ongoing discussion on allowing pedestrians to cross Portage and Main, that famous Canadian intersection that has been entirely barricaded since 1979.
Closing Broadway at Times Square to vehicle traffic serves as another example of what is happening all over North America as cities recognize the mounting body of evidence that indicates planning downtowns for people and not crosstown traffic can produce countless social and economic benefits.
Beyond the flowery city-planning jargon about complete streets, active transportation and reimagining space, public streets serve a primary function of facilitating pedestrian flow and circulation for people travelling on foot. This function is so foundational that every at-grade intersection in North America, even the busiest and most car-centric ones, allow the willing pedestrian to cross.
Every intersection, that is, except Portage and Main.
Portage and Main’s high traffic volumes are unique, but were never so much so that they warranted the legally dubious prohibition of pedestrians. The decision to do so was not made by public officials concerned about pedestrian safety or traffic congestion. It was made as an agreement between a city council that never saw a backroom megaproject it didn’t like and property owners who foolishly believed customers could be compelled to walk past underground retail spaces.
The desperately shrill chorus opposed to opening the intersection, found on Twitter and in news sites’ comment sections, seems to have forgotten this. Instead, they cling to worn-out shibboleths such as the contradictory argument that re-opening Portage and Main is unnecessary and will cause traffic chaos. Conjured stories of routine gridlock and frequent pedestrian deaths in the years leading up to the barricades are peddled around in order to frighten Winnipeggers too young to remember the pre-1979 carnage themselves.
Fewer people believe this stuff. More and more, public officials, organizations and citizens have begun to see the barricades as detrimental to downtown’s economic health, image and perception of safety. If it wasn’t for city hall’s long-standing fear of litigation from one of the property owners at the intersection, Mayor Brian Bowman would likely open the intersection tomorrow.
But whether it happens tomorrow or sometime after the 40-year agreement between the city and property owners runs out in 2019, it will happen. It’s not a matter of if, but when.
No one is calling for traffic anarchy at Portage and Main. Like any other intersection, new crossings and controls will seek to balance the needs of both pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Re-opening could even lead to less traffic, in the same way that closing them led to 20 per cent more traffic over 10 years. The more cities plan for something, the more of it they get.
And in a city that has recently begun to rediscover an appreciation for its winter climate, where $150 tickets for dinner in a tent on the frozen Assiniboine River instantly sell out, the notion that Portage and Main is too windy and cold comes off as disingenuous and silly.
Portage and Main is the historical, physical and economic heart of our city. Removing the barricades and reclaiming that heart is essential, not only to increase pedestrian connections downtown, but to make it clear that Winnipeg, like any good city, is a place for people.
Robert Galston is a master’s candidate in the city planning department at the University of Manitoba.
Twitter:@robgalston
History
Updated on Thursday, February 4, 2016 7:31 AM CST: Adds photo