Council to decide Monday on weekend downtown street closures

An almost-five-year-old suggestion from Ward 3 Coun. Matthew Shoemaker and Ward 1's Sandra Hollingsworth will finally make its way to the City Council agenda this week.

Back in June, 2017, councillors agreed to have city staff look into the possibility of closing Queen Street to road traffic on summer weekends.

Queen Street East, 'Team Hollingshoe' proposed, should be closed from East Street to Gore on Friday and possibly Saturday nights from Victoria Day to Labour Day.

The idea, they said, was to "both encourage active use of the downtown space and to increase events downtown."

They referred to the Downtown Association's strategic plan, which called for more events and an extended event season to lure more people to Queenstown.

It took until early 2020, however, for city officials to ask the Downtown Association what it thought of the idea.

The Downtown Association decided to ask its members to decide the issue at its annual meeting, which got delayed when the pandemic hit.

After consulting members at the 2021 general meeting, Downtown Association executive director Salvatore Marchese advised the city it would consider a gradual rollout of closures beginning with one day a week and building on that if the street closures achieved their goal.

"There is concern," Marchese said, "that the motion does not include our entire geographic boundary that runs from Pim Street to Dennis Street."

Other concerns raised by the association:

• where will the budget come to cover the costs of closing the street?
• who will provide the manpower and hours required to close the street?
• who is responsible for the closure and who will be taking the lead?
• where will volunteers come from that are required to close the street?
• who will be providing the programming of the street while closed?
• who will ensure social distancing protocols are enforced?

In a report prepared for Monday's City Council meeting, deputy city clerk Madison Zuppa recommended against downtown street closures at this time.

"It is recommended that city staff and the Downtown Association assess the post-pandemic programming requirements (e.g. budget, volunteers), frequency of closures, traffic impacts (e.g. local and tourist), use of other public spaces (e.g. future downtown plaza, GFL Memorial Gardens, Roberta Bondar tent pavilion, parking lots, side streets), insurance and liability, challenges and benefits to the business community, among other metrics at which time City Council or the Downtown Association could bring this idea back for future consideration," Zuppa said.

"There is an existing process in place for temporary street closures. A review of the street closure process may be warranted in the future to try to improve the efficiency of the process for both the city and applicants."

Councillors will be asked on Monday to accept her report as information, which would kill the Hollingshoe proposal for the time being.

Monday's City Council meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m.