Ping-Pong, picnic tables coming to Graham Avenue as city reimagines former bus mall

Darren Bernhardt · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 23, 2025 2:34 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

A agelong of downtown Winnipeg that rumbled with buses for 3 decades is astir to alteration into an municipality playground with Ping-Pong and picnic tables, creation and lighting installations, thoroughfare murals, caller seating areas and a protected motorcycle lane.

City officials and the Downtown Biz unveiled a caller imaginativeness for Graham Avenue after Winnipeg Transit routes determination north to Portage Avenue connected June 29.

By mid-July, a four-block agelong of Graham "will beryllium much colourful, much dynamic, much pedestrian-friendly," said Mayor Scott Gillingham astatine an announcement connected the corner of Graham and Smith Street, adjacent to the Millennium Library.

"And this is lone the beginning."

The upcoming changes are portion of a pilot project "toward a semipermanent imaginativeness successful making Graham 1 of downtown's signature streets," Gillingham said.

As it evolves and matures, the caller avenue will beryllium a spot to conscionable connected a patio, be a market, stitchery for events, work a publication successful the shade, and locomotion your dog, said Hazel Borys, the city's manager of planning, spot and development.

"Together, we're transforming Graham Avenue into a vibrant people-first destination."

The former Graham Avenue Transit Mall, a nine-block corridor betwixt Vaughan and Main streets, has been chiefly a autobus thoroughfare since the summertime of 1995, seeing some 1,800 buses and 100,000 transit users daily, according to the city.

The buses are being shifted distant arsenic portion of the large overhaul of Winnipeg Transit's superior network, which is besides portion of CentrePlan 2050 to get more radical surviving and visiting downtown.

Kate Fenske, CEO of Downtown Winnipeg BIZ, said the re-imagining of Graham "is truly a cleanable illustration of that imaginativeness successful action."

It's astir attracting radical by creating a spot to stay, rest, play and shop, she said.

"Having a vibrant downtown, much radical present with things to do, volition besides amended safety."

Gillingham, Borys and Fenske called this a proceedings stage, wherever things volition beryllium offered to spot what sticks, admitting they mightiness not each work.

"We have permission to neglect here. This is astir a blank canvas and we're gonna effort immoderate things, and if they don't enactment we'll determination connected to the adjacent thing," Gillingham said.

Borys described it arsenic "tactical urbanism" looking astatine short-term actions that could spark semipermanent change.

As a destination alternatively than a thoroughfare, Graham volition supply easier entree and connections to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Wehwehneh Bahgahkinahgohn (former Hudson's Bay building), True North Square and Canada Life Centre, the Millennium Library and the galore smaller businesses successful the country "that payment from a engaged thoroughfare beingness and possibly a small spot little of those large buses going by."

More creation and activities volition popular up through the summer, including the downtown farmer's marketplace betwixt the Manitoba Hydro gathering and Graham, a concert series, and festival abstraction for the Canadian Elite Basketball League's 2025 title weekend, Aug. 22-24.

"I promote each of you, whether you live, work, survey oregon sojourn downtown to beryllium definite to adhd Graham Avenue to your database of things to cheque retired this summer," Fenske said.

Rochelle Squires, CEO of CentreVenture Development Corp., said ideas similar a pedestrian street successful the bosom of a metropolis are a bold, visionary determination to swim against the tide of suburban enlargement and big container developments, and to rebuild from the ongoing detrimental effects of the pandemic.

"What we're starting connected Graham Avenue volition people a turning constituent successful however we envision, usage and acquisition our downtown," she said.

"This is conscionable the beginning."

Plans for the avenue's wintertime seasons volition beryllium unveiled astatine a aboriginal date, Squires added.

The metropolis has budgeted "up to $250,000" for the aviator task portion the thoroughfare murals are being funded by a $100,000 (U.S.) assistance from Bloomberg Philanthropies Asphalt Art Initiative. 

Money for important changes, alternatively than simply pop-up events, is what Gillingham hopes tin travel from the aviator experiment. Squires would similar to spot galore of the aboveground parking tons yet go developments, similar that of True North Square.

"Money follows vision," Gillingham said.

"If we tin envision what could go here … and I'm hoping with our provincial and national partners arsenic good due to the fact that there's economical development … that we person some partners to get the benignant of concern we need."