Winnipeg’s study projected that while pedestrian crossing times would drop, motorists traveling through the intersection in some directions at rush hour might be held up by seven to 20 minutes if the city chose a design that enhanced pedestrian safety.

A map of the plebiscite result created by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation clearly shows an urban-suburban divide when it comes to Portage and Main.

Getting pedestrians off streets is not the only planning idea of the ’60s and ’70s that has fallen out of favor among urban planners. Professor Milgrom said that keeping cars off some roads also proved disappointing in many cities. Vancouver has returned transit buses to a downtown section of Granville Street which had long been a pedestrian mall. Ottawa’s Sparks Street, which has no motor traffic, becomes a wasteland once the public servants who work near it go home each afternoon.

But Professor Milgrom hasn’t given up hope.

“Sooner or later that intersection is going to get opened,” he said. “Opening Portage and Main is no silver bullet for downtown. But not opening it will hold back a lot of things.”

Review of Reviewing

Sam Tanenhaus, who once edited The New York Times Book Review, is spending a year at the University of Toronto as a visiting professor. We’re taking advantage of that to hold a New York Times subscriber event next month. On Nov. 30, Jennifer Szalai, nonfiction book critic at The Times who is a University of Toronto alumna, and Randy Boyagoda, a longtime contributor to the Book Review and a U. of T. English professor, will join Sam in a talk about on the art of the book review.

Catherine Porter, our Toronto bureau chief, will do the introductions.

And we have a special deal for Canada Letter readers. Type in the code CANADALETTER and you’ll save 5 Canadian dollars off the ticket price. You can buy tickets and find all the details here.

Trans Canada

—Even after years of covering marijuana developments in Canada, I was taken by surprise by something that occurred this week. South Korea is warning its citizen that if they indulge in some legal smoking while in Canada, they could face punishment when they get back home.

—Murda Beatz, a leading rap music producer for the likes of Drake and Migos and originally from Niagara Falls, Ontario, doesn’t at all resemble his stage name.

—Coffee Crisp, its maker has long boasted, “makes a nice light snack.” The candy issue of The New York Times Magazine, however, observes that it is a snack reserved for Canadians.

—The latest expansion of Toronto’s subway is featured in our review of transit art around the world.

Around The Times

—The killing of a Saudi Arabian journalist and dissident in Turkey has turned the world’s attention to Saudi actions in Yemen. Be sure to read Declan Walsh’s assessment and take time to view Tyler Hicks’s moving, sometimes horrifying, photos.

—Does paying $1,000 for a dip in a pool make any sense? Maybe in this case.

—The “Trembling Giant,” the name given to a massive and peculiar aspen grove, has a new reason for its apparently anxious state.