opinion & features

Alana Lajoie O'MalleyWinnipeg was a city designed for humans, not cars

It looks like rapid transit is on everyone's radar in the upcoming civic elections.  Excellent.  That means that this election year, those looking for real progress can start pushing the envelope by bringing attention to the fact that public transportation is only one part of a larger urban design problem in Winnipeg.

Years of backwards urban planning threaten to strip us of Winnipeg's potential to be a dynamic network of walkable 'villages' with ample amenities  connected by rapid and active transit infrastructure.

Photo courtesy of Rob McInnesActive transit means infrastructure that includes bike paths as well as river networks for skating, skiing, winter cycling, and summer paddling.  It also means safe and sheltered places for people to store their bikes, skis, canoes, and skates while they go to the office or to the grocery store.  It means building new office buildings with showers for cyclists.  It means imagining a future in which fewer people drive than don't.

We already have neighbourhoods that look a lot like this.  They happen to be the ones that sprung up before everyone had cars.  Saint-Boniface, Osborne Village, and Wolseley come to mind.  These are 'villages' with commercial strips that open onto sidewalks, not parking lots;  basic, and even some specialty, groceries and boutiques; and local venues for entertainment.  It is possible to live in these neighbourhoods without a vehicle.  

Reviving the kind of urban design that allows for these kinds of 'villages' to thrive and multiply must go hand in hand with establishing transit networks to connect them.

This kind of project would be a return to our past.  The City of Winnipeg has always been – recall Unicity – a network of small towns with distinct areas for shopping and entertainment.  In 1972, the City was reconstituted as the amalgamation of 12 separate municipalities: Winnipeg, St. Boniface, Charleswood, Fort Garry, East Kildonan, North Kildonan, Old Kildonan, West Kildonan, St. Vital, St. James-Assiniboia, Transcona, and Tuxedo.

For years, these municipalities were connected to each other by electric car and bus. These public transit connections served as the primary mode of transportation for people who needed to get to work in a different neighbourhood or make a shopping trip downtown.  

One can probably predict the age of a given residential area based on the average distance one has to walk for a loaf of bread.  As cars increasingly became the norm, so too did areas that were exclusively residential, nary a corner store in sight.  

Photo courtesy of Rob McInnesWe cannot separate the scale and location of commercial areas from a citywide discussion of transportation infrastructure.  In the city's newest residential areas, a rapid-transit corridor won't do much to reduce the need for one or more cars – how else are you supposed to go get a loaf of bread?  These are areas designed with the assumption that everyone drives.  They are connected by sprawling roadways and surrounded by big-box grocery, electronics, clothing, home & garden, and furniture stores.  Sidewalks, if they exist at all, are separated from these stores by massive, ugly, windy parking lots.  

Intelligent urban design means that basic amenities and entertainment should always be accessible by foot.  It also requires the assumption that sooner rather than later, more people will not be drivers than those who are.  It is time for the folks at City Hall and for those of us who hire them through elections to create a Winnipeg in which the car is not assumed to be the primary mode of transportation.  Yes, even in Winnipeg.  Historically speaking, in fact, that is what this place was originally designed for.

– Alana Lajoie-O'Malley is the director of the campus sustainability office at the University of Winnipeg. To comment on this or any other article in Outwords, e-mail letters@outwords.ca