Getting There
How do we get there?
Politicians, planners, media, and critics have been talking up a “downtown revival” since at least the 1970s–but at the pace we’re going we’ll still be talking about it in another 30 years. All this could have been avoided were it not for the inept politicos who failed to take Norman D. Wilson’s warning seriously.
The 1990s saw more demolition than development downtown, but a renewed interest in urban living has prompted the conversion of some former warehouses into upscale condo lofts. Some see this as a “downtown renaissance” in itself–but it’s too little, too late.
In the heart of downtown between Portage and Broadway Avenues, Main and Osborne Streets–historic homes and buildings have been leveled for parking. Most of the land use is now devoted to surface-level lots, making for an unsafe, pedestrian-unfriendly downtown that seems sparse.
Until these holes in the landscape are filled with mixed-use development, Winnipeg’s downtown will never be popular as it was–as downtowns remain in other Canadian cities: Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal.
Step by step
The most immediate task is to correct the ill effects of our city’s radical post-1955 rejection of its urban roots. A postwar embrace of rural, suburban, low-density, vehicle-based ways of living occurred in tandem with an increased disdain for downtown life. Walk up Main Street–from Broadway to Higgins Avenues–and see the results. Without heavy-rail, underground mass transit, downtown Winnipeg cannot increase its density and population to a point where districts such as north Main can again be welcoming and popular.
Step one: Premium transit service will add pedestrians, remove cars
The first step is to prepare for subway construction. Demanding underground rapid transit from our civic, provincial, and federal government. The Government of Canada and the Province of Manitoba will have to invest at least half the $4billion (est.) cost of the subway, while the rest will come from tax-increment financing and issuing bonds.
Step two: Mixed-use buildings for busier, safer streets
The second stage will come during and after the construction of the subway, when inner-city infill development becomes the city’s top priority. Financial incentives should be given for the development of mixed-use buildings. Surface-level parking lots and empty lots downtown need be reclassified for exclusively mixed-use development architecturally sensitive to our city’s history
Step three: Downtown life
The combination of the subway’s presence and the start of new mixed-use development will make our city’s streets again busy, dense, and exciting, creating a property speculation rush and a second boom period comparable to the first (1890-1920). Winnipeg will become the premier tourist destination between Toronto and Vancouver, and we will have reclaimed our title as the Chicago of the North.