AS the new year begins, it is propitious to determine what we can learn from the past in the life of the city of Winnipeg.
I begin just after the Second World War, a period I remember well. I had returned to Winnipeg, happy to be reunited with my parents, and struck by the abundance and opulence here in contrast to the wartime restrictions in England. The first lesson is this: We live in a blessed country and we must strive to have all share in its rewards.
In retrospect, customs were rather quaint 60 years ago. For one thing, people conversed with people. Today they communicate by e-mail or speak to machines making phone calls, an exasperating, frustrating ordeal. This is a factor in the high stress rate in our society along with the fashion to speak in acronyms.
We tend to view the past through a nostalgic lens but six decades ago life was easier in many ways. The pace was slower. At that time, Winnipeg was a pedestrian city. Today it is a car city.
The change is startling. In 1946, there were 29,000 registered cars in Winnipeg. Today the number is 320,705. Other vehicles include light trucks at 54,292.
The car was not a necessity in post-war years. Most needs were within walking distance. Mom and Dad grocery stores were at every corner. I lived on Aberdeen Avenue and a few minutes walk to Selkirk Avenue would take me to the delicatessen, bakery, movie theatre, barber, doctor, bowling alley, drug store and other services. Bread and milk was delivered to the door by competing bakeries and dairies.
The city was quieter and voices were heard in the streets: kids playing games, housewives out to buy produce of the farms from peddlers, people nodding to neighbours on their way home from work.
Horses were still around with downtown troughs for their convenience. Splendid pairs of matching horses drew Eaton's wagons on their rounds. Strangers to town would gawk at an odd sight: horses peering out of windows of Eaton's stables behind Portage Avenue. And in winter, horse-drawn plows cleared sidewalks of snow.
Police wore helmets in the style of English Bobbies. In winter they wore buffalo coats on foot patrol. They had no guns. There was no drug scene, no gangs. In fact, the general demeanor was prudish. A cast of a visiting musical production was chastised by police, the guardians of morality, for using the word "hell."
"Beer parlors" were only for men. Women, Indians, dogs -- and food -- were banned.
The city frowned on what was considered the occult arts. It imposed an annual licence of $250 on hypnotists, palmists and psychic readers. In contrast, a license for an abattoir was $10, a "cow keeper" $1.
It was acknowledged in those days that people had certain needs so five "comfort stations" were provided for "free use of the public."
Street cars were given priority in their right of way smack in the middle of the avenue, along with trolley buses introduced in 1938. They were driven by electricity. Unfortunately, these models for the environment were later removed from service.
In 1946, adult tickets were two for 15 cents and a weekly transferable permit for 25 cents allowed an unlimited number of rides for five cents each. Monthly passes were $6 compared to $71.25 today. Adult fares today are being raised to $2.25 -- 30 times the rate of 60 years ago.
It is retrogressive to keep on raising fares in the face of a universal cry to increase use of transit. In 1946, the population of Winnipeg was 307,494. Transit ridership reached 97.9 million. Based on that scale of patronage, ridership last year (with a population of 694,668) should have surpassed 230 million passengers. Instead it plummeted to 40 million.
Downtown was a leafy, vibrant place with elegant theatres, hubs of excitement the Free Press and Tribune, busy restaurants and department stores and lots of pedestrians.
As we know today, this scene vanished. The destruction of downtown began a few years after the Second World War. To widen the streets for cars, 1,121 elms and maples were removed from the heart of the city. A total of 34 blocks of boulevard were obliterated -- and without any public discussion.
City hall, influenced by real estate and development interests, boosted the costly expansion into the suburbs at the expense of downtown. As in other cities, big box developments and super malls won the day.
Today there are programs to recapture the vitality of 1946 by encouraging more residences and businesses to attract people downtown.
The first thing to be done is to open Portage and Main to pedestrians. How obnoxious it is that Portage and Main, the symbol of the city, is the exclusive preserve of cars. It is a philosophy dominant throughout the city. The rights of pedestrians are ignored and abused.
The key to breathing life into the city is to make it a place for pedestrians as it was 60 years ago. It's quite simple really. Think of people first in city planning.