Local shopping street in the city of Montréal, It’s the beginning of the summer here, and more and more streets are being closed to cars every summer (although they’re reopened during the cold Canadian winters), the difference in the amount of people there now vs last week when it was still open to cars is absurd.
Since It’s the beginning of the summer there was a marching band to celebrate, which was nice.
Businesses set up stands where they sold stuff, offered free samples and stuff like that, and there was also seating and games set out for kids, like a bouncy castle, some (mini) mini-golf courses and a mini skate park.
Just closing the street to cars made the space much nicer, and there were way more people there than when the street was open to cars.
This is simple urbanism. Cars don’t stop in to see what a new business has to offer, pedestrians do. Pedestrians don’t need parking. Good urbanism makes local business boom. They are terrified of it.
Speaking as a car owner 15 minutes from a big downtown…
Car friendly downtown is impossible, and this is much better. Have some big park and ride areas well outside of downtown and bus people into the area, with some slow scooters if people really didn’t want to walk that much.
They closed one of the big downtown roads to vehicles and it’s so much nicer.
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In addition to creating more pedestrian only zones, I like our “Verkehrsberuhigter Bereich (Living Zone?)” too.
In my city we finally decided to install a tram line over a long avenue. Do you know that “classic” 4 lanes avenue where one lane on each side is practically reserved for assholes to “temporarily park” with hazard lights blinking?
So it becomes from
42 lanes to 2 lanes + tram. Win, right? I read an article about a sports goods store where the owner says “we decided to close shop now (when the tram construction isn’t even started) because next year without the space for customers to park (there isn’t now) how we could we continue business?”They won’t close. They just want the attention.
Montréal me manque ;( :(
I don’t understand the logic behind this. Are they expecting folks to shop whilst still in their cars?
The argument is that people won’t go to the street if they can’t park, this is a stupid argument, especially in Montreal
But street parking is a stupid idea to begin with. Most of the time I can’t find a spot and on the rare occasions I do, I end up having to parallel park.
I don’t understand this attitude. My town is having the same arguments. We have a central street filled with shops and restaurants that everyone wants to pedestrianize. It worked great for pandemic, and in smaller doses since. It brings huge amounts of foot traffic, tons more business, and gives people a place they want to go.
The argument against seems especially silly - there’s tons of public parking running behind the shops so it’s not like anyone wouldn’t go there
My optician is one of those opposed. They apparently think those couple street parking spots in front of their building are critical to their business. I’ve always founded it more convenient to use the public parking lot immediately behind them, no big loss. If the place is welcoming to pedestrians, I’m more likely to also walk up the street for an ice cream, or stop at one of the restaurants for dinner. If they think they get impulse shopping, they should want those hundreds of extra pedestrians when the street is closed
In the bumfuck town I live in, they are barring the streets in the old town every weekend because it increases foot traffic and local stores were dying off. It’s still pretty run down and in bad shape, but better than before.
I think I told this one here at some point, but in my town we had a particular storeowner who aggressively opposed making a street pedestrian-only. I’m talking camping in town hall as a protest. Threatening a hunger strike. This lady was on a mission. Her storefront was plastered with propaganda about how this was going to kill the town.
She was an absolute nuisance and her karmic punishment for this? She has prime commercial real estate on the most popular street in town while stores in streets open for traffic had to relocate or close because all the business happens in the car-free area.
damn, I as really hoping the story ended with everyone boycotting her store as she watched her business neighbors thrive before she eventually goes out of business.
Nope. Rising tides floating all boats include the really annoying boats, as it turns out.
Still, she was so spectacularly wrong I do still imagine how she processed that and whether the contradiction ever stuck. She really made a whole personality out of this for years.
I don’t think you understand karma.
Pretty sure they were being sarcastic.
Man, my first visit to Montreal was for heavy Montreal 2019 (BRING THAT BACK DAMNIT), and I loved walking down the pedestrian only streets near where we were staying.
Tell it to fucking swanston and bourke, dickheads
It’s nice to see that this asphalt area is being used for something valuable for society!
For sure! I hope they close it year-round so they can put more permanent things like water fountains and trees on the road.
Any small, local business owner that believes foot traffic will hurt their business should just close up shop already. Because they are idiots.
Not only is it better for the health of the community not to have cars there, but it strengthens the community by allowing people to interact with each other like human beings, and not caged animals.
I think Jane Jacobs figured this out in 1961.
There’s always foot traffic by me and I wouldn’t want it otherwise.
Now if we could get rid of on street parking and put in separated bike lanes…
But this street isn’t closed all year is it? I mean, this is part of an art festival. I am all for closing streets and building walkable/bikable communities. But don’t pick and choose based off a single event that draws a crowd regardless of it takes place on a street or in a park.
It’s closed for three months, and when I went again yesterday it was just as busy. Where’d you get that it was part of an art festival?
!["Not allowing cars on the street will kill businesses" [Montréal; Canada]](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/7926cc0a-d955-44b1-8f73-1c3f88b7f2ab.webp){kind=link}