West End pilot project to calm traffic pitched for spring

A reduced speed limit, limited traffic access and infrastructure meant to slow cars down could be tested along a section of Strathcona Street in the West End.

Coun. Cindy Gilroy has raised a motion for city staff to report on a potential pilot project she hopes can try out those changes next spring.

“I am looking for places where we can calm traffic, where people can naturally go for walks and have it be more peaceful… That area is really growing with traffic,” said Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre).

The motion describes Strathcona as a “vital north-south corridor” that includes multiple community centres and schools, in close proximity to another traffic-calmed route on Wolseley Avenue.

Gilroy said she’d like to test the idea throughout the warmer months first.

Her motion calls for a study on restricting the street to “local traffic only,” reducing its speed limit to 30 km/h from 50 km/h and adding traffic-calming measures, such as speed humps, along Strathcona between Portage and Wellington avenues.

“In some of the newer communities, they have bike paths. I’d like to try to create that here in inner-city neighbourhoods, in communities where we’re kind of lacking that,” said Gilroy.

She said residents have asked for ways to slow down traffic in the area, after it grew in recent years.

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“Just slowing down the traffic allows us to (make the street safer for active transportation) in an affordable way, compared to changing a whole street over (with new infrastructure). It allows for that space to become more calm,” said Gilroy.

If the changes are implemented and deemed a success, the councillor said she would ask for them to become permanent.

The city centre community committee will consider the idea on Friday.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

Every piece of reporting Joyanne produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.