Marion Street widening plan panned by some St. Boniface residents

A plan to reconfigurepart ofMarion Street drew the ire of some St. Boniface residents at an open house hosted by the City of Winnipeg on Tuesday evening.

The city wants to expand the busy thoroughfare and build an underpass at the intersection of Marion and Archibald Street, in a bid to reduce traffic congestion in the area.

About 180 people learned more about the proposal at Tuesday's open house at Archwood School.

"Marion will continue under Archibald and then come up at the other end. Archibald will stay at the same level; Archibald is not going to go up, it's Marion that is going to go down," said Luis Escobar, the city's manager of transportation.

"The main idea for us doing that is because we heard from the public or from residents that they did not want to see a lot of noise."

The realignment of Marion would affect about 140 properties, some of which may face expropriation. City officials say they have already met with affected property owners.

But some area residents said they're so upset over the plan, they circulated a petition against it during the open house.

"The proposal that they've proposed really doesn't solve anything. It makes a third lane, but you still bottleneck a mile down the road like, not even a mile," said Sandra Dupuis, who started the petition.

"So there's no point on ruining people's lives so that they can stop a little further down the road."

Dupuis said about 500 people have signed the petition to date.

The final plan for the Marion Street widening project must still be approved by city council.