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Winnipeg’s first pedestrian scramble won’t continue after a city committee voted to end a yearlong pilot project testing out the traffic control method at an Exchange District intersection.
A report to the city’s public works committee recommended ending the project and returning the intersection to its previous signal operation.
Although a safety review found some moderate benefits to the scramble, “the number of pedestrians at this location was too low to strongly support this type of signal,” transportation manager David Patman wrote in the report.
The pilot launched at the corner of King Street and Bannatyne Avenue in June 2025. It allowed pedestrians to cross in all directions while all vehicle traffic was stopped.
City staff found the scramble improved pedestrian safety by reducing the number of people crossing against the signal, with about half of pedestrians crossing during the dedicated scramble phase. About one-quarter of scramble phases during peak periods had no pedestrians.
The intersection had only one recorded pedestrian collision in the last decade, the report says.
Public works chair Coun. Janice Lukes supported the recommendation to end the pilot project, saying the results were not surprising.
“I’m no traffic engineer, but I could have told you months ago when they started all this, we don’t have enough pedestrian volume at any intersection to actually support the benefits of what a scramble can really do.”
While the intersection recorded about 2,000 pedestrians in a 12-hour period, other cities require pedestrian volumes to be more than 2,000 in a one-hour period to justify using a scramble, Patman wrote in the report.
Patman said at the public works committee meeting on June 29 that there are no intersections in Winnipeg that meet that threshold.
The report says the city has no plans for additional pedestrian scrambles, although they could be considered in the future if a suitable location is identified.
Lukes called the pilot project “a nice experiment” that provided useful information.
Osborne Village BIZ executive director Zohreh Gervais argues the city tested the concept at the wrong location, because the intersection of King and Bannatyne involves two one-way streets.
“It’s not designed to be used with two one-way streets,” Gervais said in an interview.
“I’m not surprised. We kind of knew that it would be a failed pilot project because it’s set up to fail, putting it at an intersection where it’s really suboptimal.”
City staff rejected a BIZ proposal to test out a pedestrian scramble at Osborne Street and River Avenue in 2024. Gervais said the BIZ would still like to see a scramble there, arguing it would be a more appropriate location.