[Ando]

Skywalks are old school and deprive the streetscape of vitality. Winnipeg already went way overboard on them. It was thought to be a great idea to put them all over downtown, especially on Portage, to connect retail and make it comfortable for shoppers moving from eatons, the bay and portage place. We know how that went. Now Portage just has a bastardized streetscape and no shopping. They look bad enough as it is but there are some extremely hideous ones where no effort is made to make them look pleasing and some of them are complete disasters in terms of integrating new and old structures. I honestly believe that money could have been saved by not building a skywalk and life would have gone on without it. Many cities are much less gung ho about walks than Winnipeg, but also have winters.