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Originally Posted by pspeid
True, but that's one day for a special event where traffic flows through that area would have been cut significantly anyway (I imagine).
I think we'd all like to see some kind of successful pedestrian mall, but I think suggesting we just close Osbourne Village for the summer is a but simplistic.
I have no idea of the level of training of the city's traffic flow experts, but I'm going to assume that at least some of them know how to add 2 + 2. If they say a summer-long closing of O.V. would cause horrible traffic snarls, then maybe it might be true? Would closing the street to through traffic significantly increase foot traffic for more than the first weekend or two? Is there a way to accurately count pedestrian traffic through the Village?
Personally I'd love to see a pedestrian mall in Winnipeg be as successful as Montreal's tourism promotions made theirs to look, but I don't think it's as easy as "just close the street".
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Except it really is though. In Montréal they started with week long experiments, and then when they realized it was highly successful they increased the time the street was pedestrian only as well as increasing the sheer number of streets in the same time. The main issue that these traffic flow “experts” have is that Osborne is really a N/S route that passes through the entire city. However, in Québec City for example they close down parts of Rue St Jean and parts of the Grande Allée. If you’re unfamiliar with Québec City these are two of the most important thoroughfares in the entire city that stretch virtually the whole city limits once they turn into Chemin St-Foy and Blvd Laurier respectively.
Pedestrianizing Osborne initially between Pembina and River would not be the end of the world and we both know it. If successful, one could easily transition that to go up to Broadway, or even creep up to Portage if the city truly has balls.
At the end of the day, Osborne is not the only street we should be looking at to implement these things. Corydon is another street that comes to mind. Maybe one of Marion/Goulet or Sherbrook/Maryland. In Downtown, Waterfront Dr (really most of the Exchange District) and of course Graham Ave as well. There’s so many possibilities, and really if it’s not successful. Oh well the worst thing that happened was a couple weeks of summer with more traffic.
Don’t believe those crooks at public works. There’s not a single one of them that cares for the vitality of streets and just want all downtown/inner city streets to be thoroughfares so they can rush back to their exurban houses in Headingley or Waverley West.