‘Exciting and meaningful’: St. James Collegiate track replacement nears starting line

St. James Collegiate students circled the edge of the school’s 400-metre track on Thursday morning as Couns. Shawn Dobson and Brian Mayes stood nearby, announcing a plan to rebuild the surface beneath their feet.

The cracked asphalt will be replaced next year with a rubberized track under an $800,000 agreement in principle between the St. James-Assiniboia School Division and the City of Winnipeg.

Across the city, older similar running tracks have gradually been restored in recent years, shifting toward rubberized surfaces designed for both school and community use.

The St. James (1900 Portage Ave.) project is the latest in that series.

“As a runner myself, who’s been running since high school, I thought we were as a city, way behind,” said Mayes (St. Vital). “Back in about 2018, we only had the one rubberized outdoor track at U of M built for the 1967 Pan Am Games, and we’d never built another one. So I thought, well, we should do another one.”

Since then, that work has included projects at Victor Mager School, Nelson McIntyre Collegiate and Collège Béliveau in the Louis Riel School Division; Garden City Collegiate in Seven Oaks; River East Collegiate in River East Transcona; and Grant Park Collegiate in the Winnipeg School Division.

Some of the older gravel tracks were “returning to the elements,” according to Mayes, who said the modernization of facilities has been a boost for training and has helped re-energize the sport of track and field in the city.

“We wanted to do one in the West End, and of the three or four possibilities, this was the least expensive, so that had some appeal,” Mayes said. “We’ve been able to do it kind of logically, put them up in different parts of the city, and the school divisions have been really good at co-operating with us.”

Construction on the track is scheduled to begin in summer 2027 — as the city is currently performing sewage pipe tunnelling work below the land it sits on — with the goal of opening it for the start of the 2027–28 school year.

“This school is so deserving, and I can’t say that loud and clear enough,” St. James principal Roné Boyko said. “This school, students, staff, any community members that use it, is just so deserving of something really exciting and meaningful, and it’s going to benefit everybody, bringing them together outdoors.”

Boyko said the project was a little sentimental for her, as she ran track as a child and into high school, with the 400 metres as her event.

“I can’t wait for the rubber track, because there’s no way I’m running on this now,” Boyko said, glancing at the current surface. “A rubber track makes a world of difference on every joint in your body.”

Mayes estimated the new tracks will remain in good condition for 20 to 40 years and need relatively little maintenance, citing University of Manitoba’s Pan Am-era track, which has been resurfaced only two or three times since it was built.

“I intend to use this, you know,” Mayes said of the St. James facility. “I need a softer surface, I’m over 60 now.”

As for future projects, Dobson (St. James) said there are still parts of Winnipeg without rubberized tracks, and he hopes for continued collaboration with Mayes on future upgrades.

Mayes pointed to Transcona as a possible next step, along with ongoing discussion around improvements at Kelvin High School, which the province has previously committed to supporting.

“I felt like if I didn’t do this, there was going to be another 50 years,” Mayes said. “So I needed to do this, and if this is the last one, not bad, I’m okay with that.”

When Mayes was asked what’s been most rewarding about the process, he paused, saying it makes him emotional.

“Someone said to me, when we did Garden City, ‘Why are you spending this money? You could be spending this money in your own ward, using it to get re-elected.’ And I said the point of getting elected is not to just get re-elected, the point of getting elected is to do some stuff you want to do and that’s good for the community — and this is something I really want to do.”

zoe.pierce@freepress.mb.ca