Why close downtown streets to cars for the benefit of drunk and/or disorderly university students and other late-night downtown revellers? Isn’t that sort of like the tail wagging the dog, some might wonder. Well, maybe. But there’s a lot to be said for the collection of measures, including some late-night weekend street closings, that goes into effect as a pilot project this Thursday, and it all seems worth a try.
The city’s Night Life Task Force, which includes representatives from Guelph Police, city hall, the university, downtown business people and other interested parties, has wrestled for years with the downtown’s weekend bar scene problems. Outdoor urinals known as pissoirs were tried in the fall of 2009 and were well used, but they didn’t return. Taxi stands were installed in the fall of 2007 on a test basis, but they were later abandoned. The problems they were meant to address remained, though.
The new strategy tweaks these measures. Standard portable toilets, which unlike pissoirs can be used by women and by the disabled, now will be tried during problem hours to reduce the problem of public fouling. Taxi stands will return, but this time with security provided by the Downtown Guelph Business Association to prevent disturbances generated by crowds around the stands.
As for the closing of sections of Wyndham and Macdonell streets from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, there are a number of reasons for it. The risk of people who have been drinking being hit by cars should be reduced. Discouraging people from driving to the bars could reduce drinking and driving. It should get rid of the idea of Macdonell Street as a place for a tailgate party, where people come downtown and park and hang out around their cars. The increased space for pedestrians created by closing the roads to cars should reduce the jostling of people on the sidewalks that often escalates into disturbances, police say.
Meanwhile, the university’s late night bus will have a new location, moving from Wilson Street to a platform at Guelph Central Station on Carden Street.
A strong presence by police and city bylaw officers, combined with the new package of measures, might just bring things under better control. Again, it’s worth a try.