Re:Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm
by 52-6F-62 on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @05:43PM
(#21767593)
That runs counter to the data I’d previously seen. Business owners claimed spending went down when it was reported as going up.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4390635/king-street-pilot-project...
Or see the city’s YoY report, page 16:
https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/8fb5-TS_Ki...
The restaurants that suffered were belonged to the fellow I mentioned and those that aligned themselves with him. He was already a bit of a notorious blowhard.
What you’re describing is what they claimed would happen, but didn’t because more people were encouraged to spend time there.
Even anecdotally I certainly spend more time there after films than I otherwise did because it’s so much better to move through rather than a total blockade of cars every single day rendering it basically a non-consideration—at least on our part.
This was good for riders.
However there were a few nice but not noteworthy restaurants that got a lot of evening customers who were people waiting for King St to get moving and decided to give up and have dinner or a few drinks.
Think of it along the lines of airport restaurants suffering due to reduced flight delays and reliably fast security clearance.