Comment 77518

By jason (registered) | Posted May 29, 2012 at 15:22:10 in reply to Comment 77441

Ummm, actually the fact that traffic moves in one direction is actually a bigger deal than we realize. I won't share which business owner told me this for fear that some take it the wrong way, but a downtown business owner told me recently that one of the big concerns back in the 50's when the switch was made was the sudden inability of the more prosperous west end residents to come along King St to their shops. Reading old newspapers from back then, it is certainly a major topic of discussion. This person said that it is still true today....due to a variety of factors, there is a much higher disposable income west of James, than east. With Main and King functioning as they do, folks from the west end only ever come along King on their way home now.

I'd never thought of this before, but reading those old Spec articles from the 50's, he's right...this was a major concern among shop owners. In bigger cities with 2, 3 or 4 parallel blocks of street retail (Montreal, Portland, NYC etc...) this wouldn't matter as much, but here our downtown strip is one long skinny street - King...and James, north/south.

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