Portage and Main officially reopened to foot traffic

Watch a timelapse of the construction at Portage and Main to reopen the intersection to pedestrians

Why did the Winnipegger cross the road?

Well, for the past 46 years they couldn’t—at least not at Portage and Main. But on Friday, that changed.

The City of Winnipeg has officially reopened the famed intersection to foot traffic.

“The barricades that have prevented pedestrians from crossing, those have come down, and the sidewalk has been repaired and restored,” said Mayor Scott Gillingham.

“There’s new traffic lights; there’s new pedestrian lights.”

Now that the intersection is open, pedestrians can cross in all four directions. The city has also reconfigured lanes and traffic for better safety.

This means vehicles can’t turn right anymore from Main Street onto Portage Avenue East. As well, there are now three left-turn lanes to get onto northbound Main Street, along with one through lane and one right-turn lane.

The mayor said the intersection is looking “fantastic.”

“Obviously, Portage and Main is critically important to Winnipeg’s history and important to our future as well,” he said.

Kate Fenske, the CEO of Downtown Winnipeg BIZ, called this reopening a “generational change” for the city.

“It seems so simple that we’re going to be able to just cross an intersection, but it really is, I think, a full declaration that shows that accessibility matters, that economic activity matters for Winnipeg, and that also a downtown community that is vibrant is a priority,” said Fenske.

Crossing at Portage and Main was a common occurrence in Winnipeg all the way into the 1970s. But in 1976 the city signed a deal to open a retail space underground, which in turn would move pedestrian traffic there as well.

In 1979, the underground concourse was completed, and pedestrians were no longer allowed to cross the intersection.

There was a bit of life for the intersection in 2018 when a plebiscite was held asking Winnipeggers if they wanted to reopen the street or not.

Then-Mayor Brian Bowman said the city would honour the results of the plebiscite. However, it was defeated with 65 per cent opposed to reopening it, compared to 35 per cent in favour.

Despite the loss, talk of removing the barriers and bringing pedestrians back didn’t go away.

A motion was brought forward in 2023 to once again allow people to cross the road, as it was determined it would cost more than $73 million and cause years of traffic delays to repair the underground concourse. In March of 2024, Mayor Scott Gillingham announced the intersection would reopen.

Construction work started at the end of 2024 with a goal of having Portage and Main open again by the summer of 2025.

Adam Dooley, the chair of Vote Open Winnipeg, thinks the city has done a great job with the reopening work.

“This is a much more people-friendly design. I think you’ve got tens of thousands of people working within a few steps of this intersection and I think we’re going to see that life come back into this intersection very quickly,” said Dooley.

For those against reopening, Gillingham said the move will help in the revitalization of Winnipeg’s downtown. He added he thinks this is a decision that will help Winnipeggers in the future.

“There’s a lot of significant investment, billions of dollars of investment actually, happening in Winnipeg right now—this is one more piece of it,” he said.

- With files from CTV’s Ainsley McPhail