Reopening Portage and Main hailed a success

Mayor Scott Gillingham has hailed the reopening of Portage Avenue and Main Street as a success, nearly a year after the downtown intersection became accessible to pedestrians again.

The future of the circular concourse beneath the intersection is still up in the air, while city staff conduct a cost-benefit analysis and consult building owners at Portage and Main’s corners.

“I’m glad we made the decision to reopen Portage and Main. It’s working well, it looks great,” Gillingham said. “So many people that were opposed to it told me now they’ve changed their mind.”

Saturday marks one year since the intersection reopened to foot traffic. Portage and Main was closed to pedestrians since 1979 as part of a commercial development deal.

About 4,000 pedestrians and 70,000 vehicles use the intersection on a typical weekday, city spokeswoman Julie Dooley said.

Two-thirds of Winnipeggers who voted in a non-binding plebiscite in 2018 opposed reopening Portage and Main to pedestrians. Safety and travel times were among opponents’ biggest concerns.

The city analyzed commute times on four key routes in November, concluding the reopening had a minimal impact compared with travel times in the same month in 2024.

Morning travel on two routes increased by less than a minute, and two were unchanged. Afternoon commutes increased by less than two minutes on three routes, while the fourth had a one-minute decrease.

The analysis did not account for construction or other issues that cause traffic congestion.

“From our perspective, the intersection is functioning as it should with minimal delay to motor vehicle traffic — as was anticipated,” Dooley wrote in an email.

The city’s traffic signals branch made one minor timing adjustment. Nothing major was required beyond that, Dooley said.

Manitoba Public Insurance has not received reports of vehicle collisions involving pedestrians or cyclists at Portage and Main since the reopening, spokeswoman Kristy Rydz said.

MPI has received 96 reports of collisions involving vehicles at Portage and Main this year (up to June 23), following year-end totals of 152 in 2025 and 171 in 2024.

The redesign took about eight months to complete and came in under the $21.3-million budget. It was timed to coincide with the launch of Winnipeg Transit’s new network.

Council voted to remove concrete barricades after a staff report in 2024 said it would cost $73 million and cause up to five years of traffic disruption to dig up the road and replace the waterproof membrane that protects the underground concourse. The work would have to be repeated decades later.

Christine Neustaeter, who owns Eye GO Mobile Optical in Winnipeg Square, which is linked to the concourse, said there seemed to be less foot traffic in the underground shopping mall, especially this month.

“I don’t know if it’s because people are outside more. I would say (the reopening) hasn’t helped us any,” she said. “Some people, I think they’re more prone to stay outside if they don’t need to go inside for anything, where before they would have been forced inside more often to cross that intersection.”

Her store started offering new promotions, including a one-hour service for single-vision glasses, to generate business after Portage and Main reopened.

Neustaeter crosses the intersection on foot and drives through it. She said she enjoys the convenience as a pedestrian, and she hasn’t noticed any change to her commute time as a driver.

The Downtown Winnipeg Business Improvement Zone hasn’t received any concerns or complaints, CEO Kate Fenske said.

“What we have heard is people like it, and wonder why it wasn’t done earlier,” she said. “It’s making life easier in terms of moving around more quickly. You still see a lot of people down in the underground supporting the businesses there.”

Driving through the intersection “really hasn’t been any different,” said Winnipeg resident Derick Young, who supported the reopening.

“It’s just validation of what we should have known a year ago, and that is that the intersection will be just fine,” he said.

The intersection is visually appealing and “helpful to the urban environment” without barricades, Young said.

Coun. Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan) was concerned about the potential effect on travel times before the reopening.

“They did a lot of smart and good things to mitigate the impacts on traffic,” he said. “The much-maligned changes to Transit did actually positively impact movements through Portage and Main.”

Buses no longer turn left from eastbound Portage to northbound Main, where a third turning lane was added, he noted.

The fact that the concourse is still open is positive, Browaty said.

City staff are expected to produce a report about the concourse’s future in January 2027. A consultant found it would cost about $11 million to fully decommission the concourse.

Gillingham said staff are looking into whether there are options to address water seepage.

He said some of the membrane that was problematic was replaced when the intersection was redesigned.

“It may be that now the issue is not as large as it once was, but that’s what staff are looking at,” Gillingham said.

The Building Owners and Managers Association of Manitoba, which represents some buildings linked to the concourse, has called for the concourse to stay open.

“It would certainly appear that the vast majority of pedestrian crossings at Portage and Main — particularly during the business day — are still taking place at concourse level,” executive director Tom Thiessen wrote in an email to the Free Press.

“The underground concourse benefits hundreds of thousands of downtown visitors, employees, and residents every year. Our expectation is that the city commits to repairing and maintaining this critical piece of downtown infrastructure.”

— With files from Joyanne Pursaga and Gabrielle Piché

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca