Spanning rails and memory

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/11/2023 (686 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“City closes deteriorating 111-year-old Arlington Bridge indefinitely” — Free Press headline, Nov. 22.

Who doesn’t love an old bridge? And what’s not to love about a bridge that has served our community for well over a century?

The great bridge was built before what came to be known as the Great War — the First World War. But it appears we treat old bridges the way we treat our elderly. They become invisible to so many of us until, one day, we are reading “Passages” — only to discover that a person we have ignored for too long has a postal code in heaven.

I don’t want anyone to think that the Arlington Bridge will soon have its own place in Passages.

But if you’re a fan of restoring the bridge, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment.

At the moment we don’t know precisely what the price tag would be for a safe and tidy restoration. But at city hall, the number $300 million quickly finds a bridge to the brain.

In recent years, the city approved a design for a replacement. But before we drive any further, here’s some Political Science 101.

Approval for anything is a toothless tiger until money is approved. Four years ago the city approved the design, but not the money for a new Arlington Bridge that would cost $320 million.

You can bet the Golden Gate that if we tear down the old bridge and replace it, the final price could be closer to half a billion.

Warning: this is educated speculation. We’ll know much more three months from now when city engineers release a thick document on everything that’s wrong with the bridge that connects the North End to two venerable Winnipeg institutions, the Health Sciences Centre and the Natural Bakery.

When I lived in the North End nearly two decades ago, the Arlington Bridge was my path of choice to get me to one of my favourite bakeries. As soon as I crossed the bridge I turned left on Logan and within a minute my eyeballs saw one of my favourite words in the English language — Natural.

The bakery at 808 Logan Ave. is best known for its Canadian rye. But their European rye is what I buy. It’s closest to the taste of the rye my mother used for the sandwiches she packed in my Yogi Bear lunch pail. For the public record, the taste of the pumpernickel I grew up with is an eight-minute drive northeast of the Arlington Bridge at 238 Dufferin Ave. City Bread makes the salty pumpernickel for Rae and Jerry’s. If there’s better pumpernickel anywhere on the planet, this world traveller hasn’t discovered it.

Every bread lover knows that our north-south arteries all relate to Canada’s best bakeries, which happen to be in Winnipeg. My No. 1 reason for a serious drive along Main Street isn’t for the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre or the Centennial Concert Hall.

If I wanted to be publicly prim and proper, I would write that. I could say it’s the arts that inspire me to drive our Main vein. But I’m not here for the prim and proper. Free Press readers want my opinion based on genuine life experiences — my personal stories.

So while Main Street gets me to the symphony, my senses are far more delighted by the smells which come out of the oven at another historic North End bakery. For my money, the best drive on Main is the one that takes me to what was for the longest time the grand dame of North Winnipeg, Selkirk Avenue. And 247 Selkirk is where those with an appetite for sweet pastry find Gunn’s Bakery, home of the apple jack and “rootin tootin.” The recipes at Gunn’s may be as old as the Arlington Bridge. But they never get stressed, rusty or dangerous.

When the City of Winnipeg report on the Arlington Bridge is unwrapped in early 2024 and we see the long list of what requires restoration, I expect many readers, especially those who grew up in North Winnipeg, to heave some huffy adjectives after asking the first of three familiar questions we all ask, behind the wheel.

Regardless of which neighbourhood our tires are touching, the three most asked questions in Winnipeg are: why aren’t they fixing this; why is it taking so long to fix this; and why do they have to fix this over and over and over again?

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. His column appears on Thursday and Saturday.

charles@charlesadler.com