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Pedestrian Mall Would Hurt Locke Street: Council

St. Catharines council asks region to reconsider use of Port Dalhousie's Locke Street

St. Catharines city council is not impressed with a regional proposal to close Locke Street in Port Dalhousie, and make it for pedestrians only.

Councillor Carlos Garcia pointed out during a recent meeting neighbouring roads would become 2-way, and at least 34 parking spots would disappear on Locke.

He adds a Locke Street restaurant owner told council he is concerned customers won't come.  "I see them driving around, and they're not going to drive down to the park.  There's a parking lot down there, but there's also a fairly steep hill.  He says people are not going to park in the parking lot and walk up that hill."

He adds St. Catharine's fire chief said closing Locke would make it tougher to respond to a call.

Garcia further says the idea was brought forth by consultants from outside the region, hired by the region, to redevelop the area.

He adds it was picked in an online survey... surveys he feels can be misleading because there is no way to determine who responds to surveys.  "The proposal that they ended up choosing, which is the one we object to, won something like 77 to 76 votes.  The only reason it won was probably that people thought it's a pedestrian mall, and that sounds appealing."

Council voted to ask the region to come up with another plan.

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