Happy 25th to the Charleswood Bridge

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/12/2020 (2044 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Oct. 24, 1995, the Charleswood Bridge opened the day before the civic election. It had been in the planning stages for more than 50 years.

St. James mayor Bill Hanks was quoted in a Winnipeg Free Press article on Jan. 26, 1963, saying that St. James had been planning for a Moray Street Bridge “for some 20-odd years.”

      
A front page headline on the Aug. 13, 1957 edition of the Free Press read “13 Bridges Needed in the next 43 Years,” and the story indicated that a Charleswood bridge was included in the 1957 Greater Winnipeg Traffic Study.

By the end of 1990, 10 of the other 12 bridges mentioned in that 1957 report had been built at or near the suggested locations.

On Dec. 15, 1962, the St. James Bridge doubled in capacity with the opening of the lanes that currently run north. Due to the growth of Greater Winnipeg on both sides of the Assiniboine River, the need for a Charleswood Bridge only grew. But it remained a political issue for the next 33 years.

A Dec. 18, 1973 Free Press front page story about civic transportation mentioned the proposed bridge.

A June 16, 1988 editorial entitled “ Mixed Signals on the Bridge” analyzed the pros and cons of building it.

A couple of other bridges that could have eased traffic west of downtown were never built. They were a bridge connecting Aubrey Street and Waverley Street mentioned in the 1957 report, and a 1963 metro government proposal to build a bridge at the end of Thompson Drive, a few blocks west of Moray Street.  

A couple of Friday disasters proved the Charleswood Bridge was needed. On April 19, 1974, Sturgeon Creek flooded, forcing the closing of all lanes of Portage Avenue. On Dec. 4, 1992, a gas explosion at Portage and Whytewold Road closed all lanes of Portage. Both situations created gridlock in west St. James.

In the 1990s, the bridge was finally constructed under a private-public deal. Whether this model is in the best interests of taxpayers will be debated for the next 50 years.

In 2002, Route 96 (Moray Street) was extended from Corydon to Grant Avenue. In 2010, the Charleswood Parkway was renamed in memory of longtime Charleswood city councillor William R. (Bill) Clement.

Fred Morris is a community correspondent for St. James. Reach him at fredmorris@hotmail.com