Anyone have pedestrian only streets?

[NJ John]

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.
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11.41 et buggy. Long gone
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[KTPhil]

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!

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[calvinater]

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.
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"Albatross"!

[NJ John]

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.
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1973 standard, yellow, lowered, 3” narrowed front, 1600 blo-thru turbo w/single dell 15.4@86, so far
11.41 et buggy. Long gone
Let’s go O’s! Let’s go O’s!
https://www.youtube.com/@AirSpooledGarage

[Shonandb]

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.
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[HMVWNAB]

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

Street Painting Festival, Lake Worth FL.

https://spf.lakeworthbeachfl.gov/

[KTPhil]

[my59]

[Stinky123]

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.

[zerotofifty]

[FarmerBill]

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.

[Xevin]

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.
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[Abscate]

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.
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[finster]

is this a new thing for you guys, like roundabouts?
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..)
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[Abscate]

[pondoras box]

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.
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[oprn]

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!
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[insanitize]

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

[NJ John]

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.
_________________
1973 standard, yellow, lowered, 3” narrowed front, 1600 blo-thru turbo w/single dell 15.4@86, so far
11.41 et buggy. Long gone
Let’s go O’s! Let’s go O’s!
https://www.youtube.com/@AirSpooledGarage

[babysnakes]

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.