Vancouver city council mulls car-free Sundays
Regular car-free Sundays could be coming to four Vancouver neighbourhoods this summer.
Vancouver city council will meet Tuesday to decide on the so-called "summer spaces" pilot program.
City staff is recommending up to 28 street closures during car-free trials in four districts across the city.
Vision Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer proposed last December the idea of having a summer of car-free Sundays in select parts of the city.
"It's pretty exciting. There's some really interesting proposals…that really captured the essence of what we hoped that they would [and] they bring economic activity into an area," she said.
The proposals have come from community groups and business improvement associations across the city.
In a report to council, staff is recommending four districts make the cut for city support.
They include Commercial Drive; Main Street in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood; Gastown, which is hoping for a new weekly farmers' market; and Collingwood, near the Joyce Street Skytrain station, which is proposing an open-air market.
Reimer doesn't think closing these zones to cars, and opening them to people, will cause a major disruption.
"All of them are on the weekend, in areas of the city that have very low traffic on weekends," she said.
The pilot program will cost up to $200,000, which would come from the Parking Sites Reserve, a fund normally used to develop parking spots.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col...e-sundays.html
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