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Fri Jul 25, 2025 7:00 am

I’m a business owner on our main downtown street. Recently they reviewed the idea of closing the street to pedestrians only. We’re a historic town with moderate summer time weekend tourism. The committee kept bringing up towns in Vermont. Anyone, see a street close and be successful or not and reopen? I was against it for our town. So far their not moving forward with the idea.

Fri Jul 25, 2025 7:32 am

Downtown Ventura (CA) started closing a long section of Main Street during COVID, to allow restaurants to have "outdoor" tables and stay open. After COVID, they decided the traffic imposition was minor (there are many parallel side streets, and that is where the parking is anyway), and made it permanent. I like it!

Fri Jul 25, 2025 8:39 am

In Burlington VT., there is a three block section of Cherry Street that is now. A pedestrian only shopping and eating outdoor mall.

Similar to Boulder Co.

Fri Jul 25, 2025 8:56 am

Those generated pics have the same people dining at every table. Lol
Our parking is on this main street. So we would lose a bunch of needed parking. Parking is always a complaint downtown.
We only have 2-3 side streets with businesses. Basically downtown is a 4 block strip and they considered closing two blocks of it. We do close the streets for events and it great, but it’s an event.

Fri Jul 25, 2025 8:58 am

We have an old part of Downtown Vancouver called Gastown that tried closing the cobble stone road for a month (Aug) last summer and it seemed successful but I heard that while most businesses saw an increase in customers, some (drycleaners, ethic food markets, etc) experienced a drop in reg customers and a downturn in business as people couldn't drive up and park in front of the shop to buy things.

Regular customers weren't willing to park 50 feet away on the next street and walk to the shop and although the additional foot traffic was good for most businesses, most were tourists who didn't enter these services shops. The road was returned to regular traffic in Sept and businees returned to normal afterwards.

Another part of Vancouver, Commercial Drive, closes to traffic one day on occaisional weekends and other than the odd druken fights when the bars/restaurants close, I haven't heard anything negative about that road closure except finding parking as the road is in a residential area.

Fri Jul 25, 2025 10:05 am

Seems like a popular idea to draw people, if only for special events.

Street Painting Festival, Lake Worth FL.

https://spf.lakeworthbeachfl.gov/

Fri Jul 25, 2025 1:56 pm

NJ John wrote: Those generated pics have the same people dining at every table. Lol

It was Identical Twin Day in Ventura, didn't you know? :lol:
That garbage pic was on the city website, but it is representative of the look and vibe, so I used it.

Fri Jul 25, 2025 2:29 pm

calvinater wrote: In Burlington VT., there is a three block section of Cherry Street that is now. A pedestrian only shopping and eating outdoor mall.

Similar to Boulder Co.

Its Church St, runs from the north end where the church is, goes south 3 or 4 blocks. When I moved to VT, it was under construction and was a mess. Many empty storefronts, many unhappy retailers. After it was completed I lived in Burlington, and it was a great place to sit outside and have drinks and eat. Leunigs had tables out all year, we would dress to be outside and take an outdoor table in the winter on a nice day and get lunch. Retail was filled, lots of foot traffic. Bernie was Mayor, his girlfriend ran the arts council, and Burlington was a fun place to be. I'd joke about bread and circuses for the UVM students. As a local, it was better when the frat boys were gone.

Fri Jul 25, 2025 6:05 pm

Denver has the 16th St Mall, and it is quite active....and not considered safe, by some, after dark. But, that is a dif issue.

Yuma did that, about 1975. The downtown came back when they went to a regular street....and half of the businesses changed hands or closed.

Fri Jul 25, 2025 6:33 pm

KTPhil wrote: NJ John wrote: Those generated pics have the same people dining at every table. Lol

It was Identical Twin Day in Ventura, didn't you know? :lol:
That garbage pic was on the city website, but it is representative of the look and vibe, so I used it.

The city fakes the photo so as to make it appear that the city did a great thing by closing the street. This photo was published to fool the citizens, the voters. Likely the citizens, the voters ended up pay for this counterfeit, misleading photo.

Very dishonest when a city pulls this kind of stunt.

Fri Jul 25, 2025 7:00 pm

Buffalo, NY did this with a section of Main st, downtown. The train runs down the middle but it's a level crossing. So it's pedestrians and the occasional light rail train. Since everybody leaves downtown at 5:00 pm sharp there are no restaurants or shopping in this area. If you go in the evening its like a post-apocalyptic movie. Check it out on Google street view it's mostly papered over storefronts.

Fri Jul 25, 2025 9:11 pm

Xatie and I were out earlier tonight in the 76. Some of the streets (some permanent/some seasonal) blocked off with music, people imbibing and having nice social time. Parking always sucks in those areas I’m referring to. It didn’t seem to stop people coming out. But to be fair. Many people could walk there from local neighborhoods, take a light rail line, bike, E-scooter, and other modes of transportation. I don’t think there is a one size fits all “Street Closure Model” that works for every neighborhood.

Sat Jul 26, 2025 1:55 am

They work because they attract people who like people. If you don’t like people, you accumulate stuff, live in a gated community, and yell at people on Internet Fora.

Sat Jul 26, 2025 4:21 am

is this a new thing for you guys, like roundabouts? :D
the main thing is whether there are enough outlets etc on the street to draw the people. provided there's ample parking nearby and some sort of access for disabled folk and taxis you should be ok. some authorities think you can just shut the street off and put some ugly planters there and it will suddenly look like an italian piazza. when I lived in edinburgh they were constantly showing artists impressions of pedestrianised streets with folk dining outside...in scotland! (maybe would consider doing that ten days a year..) :roll:

Sat Jul 26, 2025 4:43 am

finster wrote: is this a new thing for you guys, like roundabouts? :D
the main thing is whether there are enough outlets etc on the street to draw the people. provided there's ample parking nearby and some sort of access for disabled folk and taxis you should be ok. some authorities think you can just shut the street off and put some ugly planters there and it will suddenly look like an italian piazza. when I lived in edinburgh they were constantly showing artists impressions of pedestrianised streets with folk dining outside...in scotland! (maybe would consider doing that ten days a year..) :roll:

:D :D :D

The Samba-UK analogue thread…

“ Why do Americans let cars drive in the City Centre?”

Sat Jul 26, 2025 5:37 am

I’ve visited Burlington a couple of times and the closed section was very busy with people. Granted it was always summer / late summer but it seems to work ok. On a side note I think only about 5% of the women were wearing bras, so maybe why there were a lot of college aged guys there.

When I lived in Yuma they shut down a section of the downtown area. They redid everything and it also seemed to do well. But I heard they reopened it to traffic. Even in the hottest part of the year people were out and about.

Sat Jul 26, 2025 5:52 am

Banff Alberta did the same to the whole downtown area a number of years back. It is a tourist town but some of us local Albertans used to pop in now and then for a break, gas or eats, a look around on the way through the area.

Ha! Unless you are prepared to spend an eternity there now forget it! No parking within blocks, no filling station access, no fast food or sandwich venues, washrooms are "patrons only", prices are through the roof, completely useless to anyone not in tourist trap mode!

The vast majority of us Albertans give the place a wide berth now, it's so much quicker, cheaper and better to do business in the neighboring towns!

Sat Jul 26, 2025 6:38 am

In NYC has a few streets closed. They call them pedestrian plazas.
Here is a Pedestrian Plaza Count by Borough
7 plazas in the Bronx
29 plazas in Brooklyn
32 plazas in Manhattan
17 plazas in Queens
1 plaza on Staten Island

Sat Jul 26, 2025 8:07 am

Our little town just would support it permanently. We do close every First Friday and it’s awesome. That’s all summer months. The we do Ice Fest(sculptures), Holly Jolly Christmas, Fat Tuesday(parade) and Pyrex Fest(closed side street). All super successful. But their events. Daily closed streets just wouldn’t work. And actually, out street has been closed for the last few months and on and off since October. They been beautifying our 2 block section. Brick streets, 6ft wider sidewalks, new trees, lamp poles with planters and such. My block is ripest to reopen next week. It’s been a rough 9 months. We just need to recover.
We don’t have light rail or taxis to speak of. We’re just a small town that you just don’t pass through, you have to be headed there. We had a hospital in town, but it closed two years ago.

Sat Jul 26, 2025 11:26 am

I recently visited Ghent in Belgium. Not sure of the whole town, but the area we were in had zero cars and multitudes of bicycles.