Light shows now coming to Esplanade Riel

New LED Lights will allow the City of Winnipeg to customize the display at Esplanade Riel (Source: City of Winnipeg)

People in St. Boniface and at the Forks will now have some more colour added to their evening walks along the river.

New colourful LED lights have been installed along Esplanade Riel, the bridge connecting Provencher Avenue with downtown Winnipeg across the Red River.

The City of Winnipeg says it has replaced the existing incandescent lighting that illuminated the bridge cables and centre spire with energy-efficient LED lighting in order to reduce energy and maintenance costs. The project also included the installation of programmable colour lighting that can be customized for any occasion.

“Lighting bridges and other landmarks in different colours is being done in cities all over the world, so it is nice to be able to now light Esplanade Riel in the same way,” said Darren Burmey, bridge planning and operations engineer with the city, in a statement. “Without this upgrade, it wasn’t feasible to change the colour of the bridge lights in an easy-to-manage way.”

Each one of the 55 lights on Esplanade Riel can be digitally programmed to display a specific colour or a lighting sequence. The bridge will light up for the first time Friday evening with a 10-minute sequence that repeats hourly.

City council does have plans to formalize a lighting program for the bridge. Until then short displays will take place every hour, on the hour, from dusk until midnight.