Now that the Graham Avenue transit mall is on its way to becoming a reality, Bill Menzies can spend his holidays checking out tourist shops instead of bus stops.

"It's quite satisfying to finally see it happen," said Menzies, the city's superintendent of transit planning.

For the past three years, Menzies has sacrificed much of his home life to see the city's $5.7 million project to turn Graham Avenue into a pedestrian and transit mall become a reality.

He even spent some of his holidays checking out transit malls in other cities and taking notes on their successes and failures.

Excavation on the project — the first phase of a rapid-transit corridor for Winnipeg — begins today.

"There's been a lot of time invested in it," said Menzies, who spent countless hours in meetings with various city departments, downtown merchants, and business organizations trying to work out the kinks in a plan which has been tossed around for decades.

But it has been worth every minute, he said.

"I think it's a big improvement for the city and the downtown, in particular."

By making the downtown streets more pedestrian friendly, he said, it increases activity and gives them vitality and a sense of safety.

"I think it just makes the city much more interesting," he said.

The strip of Graham Avenue from Carlton Street to Fort Street will be designated for transit buses only with the section reduced from four lanes to two.

Sidewalks will be widened and repaved with brick.

There will also be more heated bus shelters and three times the current amount of lighting, with lamp posts six metres high replacing the current 12-metre-high light standards.

Rick Borland, the city's director of transit, said the street makeover will be completed over the next two years.

The section from The Bay to Donald Street will be constructed this year by contractor J. C. Paving.

Borland said watermain renewal on Graham began almost two months ago, and is a large part of the $5.7 million total cost of the project.

About $2 million of the cost will be for streetscaping, with the rest going toward rebuilding roads and replacing pipes, he said.