Winnipeg's Portage and Main reopens to pedestrians after 46 years of barricades: How did we get here?

Winnipeg's Portage and Main intersection is embedded successful the story of Canada — the crossroads of the state and 1 of its windiest corners — and it's held that lore contempt being inaccessible to pedestrians for 46 years.

But each that changes today.

The barricades that forced pedestrians beneath crushed and into a labyrinth of tunnels to get to the different broadside of the street have been torn down.

The shrouds implicit the locomotion signals are acceptable to be removed after greeting unreserved hr with the archetypal "official" crossing astatine 10:30 a.m., said a metropolis spokesperson. People person unofficially used it since crossing lines were painted past weekend.

So however did we yet get to this point, aft years of nationalist absorption to reopening?

Well, benignant of similar however the intersection started successful the archetypal spot — against the odds.

For decades, everything successful the country that's present cardinal Winnipeg was focused around Hudson's Bay Company's Upper Fort Garry adjacent the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers.

"That was the centre of government. It was the centre of commerce. It was the centre of the centre of settlement," said Gordon Goldsborough, head researcher of the Manitoba Historical Society.

Travellers from the westbound carved heavy ruts into the prairie arsenic they followed the Assiniboine to the fort. Near there, the way crossed the main north-south Main Road that ran betwixt the fort and the HBC's Lower Fort Garry 30 kilometres northbound connected the Red.

That was the main intersection closest to the fort, considered the birthplace of Winnipeg.

But a determination by Henry McKenney changed everything.

1859

McKenney opened the city's archetypal edifice successful an aged gathering betwixt Upper Fort Garry and Fort Douglas, which was successful present-day Point Douglas. The Royal Hotel was between today's McDermot and Bannatyne avenues.

It was truthful popular, a new subdivision of the east-west Portage way emerged, heading to the Royal Hotel, crossing Main astir a kilometre northbound of Upper Fort Garry.

Recognizing the increasing value of that junction, McKenney sold the edifice and bought onshore astatine the northwest country of the Main and Portage trails, wherever helium opened a general store successful 1862.

He faced ridicule for the decision, arsenic the tract was considered undesirable — debased lying, muddy and marshy, acold from the populations astir the forts and a half-kilometre from the river.

With the edifice closed, determination were nary different businesses on the Main Road betwixt Upper Fort Garry and Point Douglas.

"At archetypal it seemed conscionable nuts, but successful time, of course, it proved truly fortunate," Goldsborough said. "Within a fewer years, everybody realized the contented of that [move]."

The store became a monolithic success and others soon followed. By 1869, a full of 33 buildings clustered astir the corner.

1979

When the intersection was closed to pedestrian postulation successful 1979, Winnipeg's halfway was successful the midst of respective decades of diminution successful economical growth, stagnant improvement and a fading retail environment.

Suburban maturation was drafting homeowners and buying improvement from downtown.

There was a consciousness that thing large had to happen, and successful the mid-1970s, the Trizec Corporation made a transportation the metropolis couldn't refuse, said Jino Distasio, prof of municipality geography astatine the University of Winnipeg.

Trizec promised to physique 2 bureau towers and a edifice connected the southwest country of Portage and Main, on with an underground retail abstraction that would treble arsenic a heated, sheltered crossing for pedestrians, redeeming them from Winnipeg's wintertime winds.

It appealed not lone connected the improvement beforehand but besides the readying one.

The city, since the 1960s, had been studying its postulation movements and concluded that pedestrians and vehicles should nary longer premix astatine that corner, according to the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation.

The woody was struck with Trizec in 1976 and construction started the pursuing year.

The agreement included barricading the corner for 40 years once the task was implicit successful 1979, redirecting pedestrians into the Trizec-owned subterranean mall.

The barricades never wholly stopped radical from stepping ft successful the intersection.

It's been a gathering place for events some celebratory and solemn — including sports signings and championships, round dances for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and rallies to enactment a landfill hunt for the bodies of murdered Indigenous women.

2014

Then-mayor Glen Murray held a plan contention successful 2004 successful an effort to physique enactment to reopen Portage and Main, but spot owners astir the intersection were not interested.

His successor, Sam Katz, balked astatine the idea, which past fell disconnected the nationalist radar until 2014, erstwhile Katz chose not to question re-election.

That's erstwhile mayoral hopeful Brian Bowman pledged to reopen the country by 2019, if elected.

He was.

A twelvemonth later, Bowman had a metropolis committee nonstop medication to examine the feasibility of removing the walls. But a Probe Research poll suggested determination was small support — 53 per cent of respondents opposed the idea.

Voices from some the for and against camps grew louder implicit the adjacent 2 years, arsenic the substance moved done the complexities progressive — consulting spot owners and studying postulation impacts and infrastructure needs.

The contented came to a caput arsenic the adjacent civic predetermination approached, prompting the summation of a plebiscite to the 2018 ballot.

A Vote Open run pushed the "Yes" vote, but another Probe canvass showed 67 per cent of Winnipeggers opposed it, citing gridlock and longer commutes arsenic the biggest roadblock, truthful to speak.

Unsurprisingly, 65 per cent of the votes successful the plebiscite said "No," and a re-elected Bowman said helium would honour the result.

It each makes Distasio shingle his head.

"It's confounding. What's the large woody if this 1 other intersection opened oregon closed successful narration to the entirety of the analyzable proscription strategy and network?" helium said. Portage and Main isn't adjacent the city's busiest postulation crossing.

"It's nary antithetic than immoderate different intersection you would find successful immoderate different metropolis globally, wherever radical transverse the street."

In spite of nationalist opinion, Portage and Main had different plans, erstwhile again.

Decades of deterioration and teardrop led to the carnal deterioration of barricades, sidewalks, staircases, entrances and different carnal features both supra and beneath the surface.

Access to the underground had besides been criticized arsenic excessively hard for those with mobility issues and mostly unsafe with its acheronian corners.

Even successful 2018, erstwhile the plebiscite happened, it was publically known that millions of dollars worthy of repairs to the intersection were required.

But much surprises were to come.

2024

In February 2024 — 45 years aft the intersection was closed — assembly learned the measure to hole the issues plaguing the country would beryllium $73 cardinal and create 4 to 5 years of postulation delays.

The membrane protecting the underground pedestrian concourse needed replacement, which besides meant millions of dollars successful related repairs. A caller membrane would person a work beingness of astir 40 years, meaning the enactment would request to beryllium repeated successful the future.

"It's clip to marque the common-sense decision," Mayor Scott Gillingham said astatine the time, starring a question to reopen the intersection astatine overmuch little expense, successful the $20-million to $50-million range. Gillingham had not supported reopening successful 2018.

In March 2024, without going to the nationalist this time, assembly voted 11-3 to bash it.

"I truly deliberation the barriers and the bunkers are conscionable a leftover of a machine-car-driven epoch that wanted to spot america beryllium capable to velocity done downtown en way to burgeoning suburbs. I deliberation we've travel a agelong mode to realize … this isn't going to beryllium overmuch of thing different than conscionable simply the close happening to bash astatine the close time," Distasio said.

"I truly deliberation it's going to beryllium the astir absorbing non-event lawsuit successful Winnipeg's downtown history."

The cost to redo the intersection for pedestrians — remove barricades, redesign crossings and curbing and install lights — was just nether $17 million, a November study said. 

The outgo to decommission the circus — the rounded concourse that connects the 4 corners of the intersection — remains to beryllium determined.