City backtracks on Assiniboine

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This article was published 09/10/2010 (5824 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg is poised to allow two-way traffic to return to a contentious block of Assiniboine Avenue — but that won’t end a lawsuit against a bike-friendly makeover of the downtown street.

At the end of August, construction crews began working on the Assiniboine Bikeway, a $125,000 project that’s one of 35 new bike-and-pedestrian amenities planned for Winnipeg this year.

Six businesses located near the Midtown Bridge immediately cried foul about the Assiniboine Bikeway, complaining about changes to the flow of traffic in the Broadway-Assiniboine neighbourhood.

In September, they filed a lawsuit to halt the construction. But the city filed motions to toss the case out of court and also remove the complainants’ lawyer from the case.

One of the main complaints against the bikeway involved the flow of traffic on a single block of Assiniboine, between Hargrave Street and Navy Way. The original bikeway plan called for two-way traffic to flow under the Midtown Bridge, but a tweak to the plan earlier this year resulted in one-way, westbound traffic beneath the bridge.

The businesses argue the change is illegal because it didn’t come before councillors. But the city maintains the change did not require council oversight.

Now, the city plans to revert to the original plan for the contentious block, Fort Rouge Coun. Jenny Gerbasi said on Friday.

“I’m very pleased to learn they’re going to make this change. As the councillor for the area, I’ve been proactively working with the department,” said Gerbasi, referring to the public works department. “We heard from the businesses who wanted the change and I hope they will be pleased with it.”

The complainants against the bikeway, however, are merely calling the move a step in the right direction. The lawsuit against the city will remain in place until all the traffic issues in the Broadway-Assiniboine neighbourhood are resolved, said Joey Pollock of the law firm Campbell Marr.

“Undoing it from Navy Way to Hargrave is a start, but it doesn’t solve all the traffic problems,” said Pollock. “It’s not going to result in the claim being discontinued.”

The city wants to remove Pollock from the case because one of his colleagues at Campbell Marr is one of the complainants. Lawyer Doug Mackenzie is the president of 10 Donald St., the business that houses the law firm.

The case has been adjourned until Oct. 15.

The city initially intended to spend $20.4 million this year to build 36 new bike and pedestrian amenities with the help of provincial and federal funds. The plan is to add 102 kilometres of new cycling routes to the city’s existing 274-kilometre network. Roughly three-quarters of the new cycling infrastructure involves new lanes or bikeways on existing city streets.

A public backlash against the plan has resulted in one of those projects getting cancelled, another being placed on hold and at least six more coming under intense criticism. Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz said he accepts responsibility for a public-consultation failure, but has also placed some of the blame at the feet of councillors such as Gerbasi.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca