The cars were back on Commercial Drive yesterday, after four weekends of street closings, and Ed Wilkerson of Magnet Hardware is thrilled and relieved.
So is the owner of Café Abruzzo two blocks away and the staff at Caffé Roma across the street. And they're all hoping that the remainder of the experimental city Summer Spaces program on their street gets cancelled so their business can get back to normal on what is usually one of the city's liveliest streets.
"It's just not working," said Mr. Wilkerson, who lost a quarter of his normal 300 customers the last four Sundays, during the program that banned cars for the day. "Basically it's a waste of time."
That growing sentiment among many merchants has already prompted three unhappy meetings among City of Vancouver staff, merchants and car-free proponents to try to find a compromise. And there may not be one.
"We're in the middle of talks, but we'll probably pull the plug for the next three weeks," said Charles Latimer of Car-Free Vancouver, which has been running the Commercial Drive closings. "If it doesn't work for businesses, it just won't work."
It's a cautionary tale about the rocky path cities are walking on as they try to adapt what seems like cool European street life to North America.
The other Summer Spaces closings are reporting success. But as city politicians, planners and car-free advocates are learning, it may be wrong to assume you can shut down any street and a vibrant pedestrian culture will emerge.
"It's just not like Europe here, where they have their passeggiata or whatever," says Eileen Mosca, a long-time resident and community activist on the Drive, referring to an Italian tradition of evening strolls.
"Maybe we're just not the culture for this. It sounded like a great idea, but in real life, do you really want to walk down the middle of the street with nothing going on?"
One-day car-free festivals started in Vancouver in 2005 on Commercial Drive, largely inspired by opposition to the province's massive Gateway highway expansion project in the suburbs. After the drive's festivals attracted up to 50,000 people in the next three years, other neighbourhoods started their own car-free festivals in 2008, which were also successful.
The new Vision Vancouver council, elected the fall of that year, decided to kick off a city-wide car-free "summer spaces" program for Sundays throughout the summer. Four neighbourhoods agreed to participate.
But, unlike the festivals, which happened again for one Sunday this June, the Summer Spaces events were encouraged to focus on attracting local residents only, says the city staffer monitoring the program, Krisztina Kassay. The festivals had ended up attracting thousands of people from across the city who would drive to the events and take over the neighbourhoods' street parking.
As a result, two neighbourhoods - Collingwood and Gastown - decided their smaller car-free event should take place on side streets that wouldn't block major traffic and they decided to focus on food as a draw to bring people down. On Main Street, the street closing alternates among three three-block sections of the street and uses music as a draw.
But on Commercial, where the organization Car-Free Vancouver initiated the closures, not the local business association, the closing is eight blocks long. Outside vendors weren't allowed in, to allay the merchants' concerns. And, to keep it local, there wasn't a lot of advertising.
Mr. Latimer said his organization decided to have fewer formally-organized activities and instead invited regular people to use the street creatively, but there seemed to be a lot of hesitation about doing that. "You can open a space for them to use it, but maybe a bit more help on our part is needed."
The end result has been a lot fewer people than at the festivals.
Councillor Andrea Reimer said the city wanted to give the program a try. "It's the reason we wanted to do a trial. If this doesn't work, we've had a trial for five weeks. Our aim wasn't to make business harder for the merchants."
But the outcome may come down to how many businesses are benefiting. "We get more business for sure and it creates a nice buzz," said Damon Hanly, the bartender at the hip restaurant Wazubee, which has been extending its restaurant table out onto the street.
But there are many more who are, in the words of local charity-store worker Terry Nelson, "just plain angry. It's a pain in the butt."
