Downtown Pedestrian Mall 2021

Booth rentals for local vendors

There should be booths placed down the street which local vendors can rent to sell products, weekly/biweekly/monthly rentals could allow for a big variety of vendors to be showcased. Making more vendors available outside of the brick and motor businesses on the street would be great.

Make it permanent

I haven't seen it suggested here yet, so I'll say it. The day after the mall shut down was kinda sad, it feels like there's so many less people around. Small local businesses could thrive if they had that sort of inviting atmosphere all year long. I realize winter is coming, but plenty of cities that experience winters have permanent pedestrian malls.

I'd love to see the opportunity for local farmers and others to sell fresh produce and products there too!

Just a really great public space

I think we need to take a second to reflect on how something that people dismissed as impossible 2 years ago (and resisted, hard) is now a treasure for the city that draws people downtown in droves. I live in the area and spend a ton of time just meandering around, especially with my 2-year-old, who loves the freedom of it.

Permanent Pedestrian Zone

I think some consideration should be given to making a section of Water Street fully pedestrian. This works in many other cities throughout the world, including in cold climate zones (Sparks Street in Ottawa for example). If that section from the intersection of George Street to Adelaide street were converted, for instance, which already includes a high ratio of restaurants, it would enlarge and create synergies with the existing entertainment district.

Reduced deck sizes changed the vibe a bit

Between the (excellent and important) change made to not allow decks to block the sidewalk, and the desire to keep decks contained so that they could persist after traffic came back, the ratio of seating space to open space was quite different this year, and sometimes it felt a bit off. Less people-focused and more like a road. I think in the long term we'd do better to extend the season and allow decks to expand beyond the footprint of parking spaces. Maintaining sidewalk access is vital, so this would allow businesses to add more capacity (it was really, really hard to find a seat sometimes!)

Duckworth sputtered

I was really surprised not to see more investment in outdoor infrastructure on the Cathedral to Prescott section of Duckworth - maybe there were holdups with permits? I had hoped to see patios from Seto, Basho, India Gate, and Shalimar forming a nice little cluster. That said, it's hard to make this kind of thing work well without some retail storefronts, and those were lacking there.

Closing duckworth street caused a traffic nightmare

Closing Duckworth street cause incredible traffic congestion every day on the waterfront and on queens road. Queen's road is not equipped with enough crosswalks and it became impossible to walk downtown because of the volume of traffic on that road. All this was to accommodate the baseless complaints of 2 - 3 businesses on Duckworth street and in the end nobody used the closed parts of that street anyway. The idea was a total bust, made no sense in the first place, was against the recommendation of the city planning department, created a traffic mess which was very predictable, and in the end nobody ever used it anyway. Politics got in the way of better judgement here and it was lucky nobody was killed on queens road. I LOVE the pedestrian mall on water street and am 100% behind the idea every year, but closing Duckworth street is a bad idea.

Start earlier

Would be nice if it started earlier in the day, before noon. I realize you need time for deliveries but I have been down there from 11AM on and see virtually no delivery trucks from then on. Also do not allow people who are not delivering stuff to drive through just because they want to, before noon. I saw that more than once.

Make all of Duckworth one-way and close only half of the street!

The Duckworth pedestrian mall wasn't connected. Would have been better to close the side closest to Water Street so people could walk a loop around both streets. And permit parklets on the other side where it's desired by businesses.

Allow food trucks where there are gaps in the retail street wall

There are always going to be dead spots along the pedestrian mall, and those will vary year-to-year - IIRC, the Mobile Vendors Association had a proposal to use some of them for food trucks. This seems like a great idea if the food trucks can be hooked up to electrical so they don't need to run their generators all the time in a confined space.

Consider a longer, partial closure on Duckworth

The Duckworth area sputtered this year and it might be worth revisiting the proposal made by ReVision SJ on this, which was a partial closure (one lane) running the length of the street. That might give it a more cohesive feel. Image attached for reference.

Hop-on Hop-off transportation

While I recognize the length of the pedestrian mall is less than 1km, I feel like some sort of Hop-on Hop-off transportation that would drive back & forth at a low speed, through the centre of the mall would be attractive to anyone who has mobility issues, young children, etc. I don't necessarily mean a large bus either, I see something smaller, similar to an old street car where stepping on/off might be quick and easy.

Various things!

- mid-June to October 1 schedule - Improved route for Duckworth Street - Pop-up shops for the many vacant Water St properties (even better if they're permanent) - Public washrooms - watch out for the more aggressive panhandlers stopping by patios (and those who keep walking into traffic by Harbour Drive) - no bicycles (most I observed did not slow down or ring their bell), skateboards are ok though

Purchase (expropriate?) the parking lot at the bottom of Solomon's lane and turn it into a public square

The parking lot at the bottom of Solomon's Lane (where movies are shown, in non-Covid times) nearly derailed that whole section of the pedestrian mall this year. Parking for fewer than 20 (!) cars is certainly not the best use of this space, which could easily be transformed into an actual public square, a space for movies and markets and seating and many other things. If the owners are not interested in selling, this might be a compelling case for expropriation at fair market value.