What's next for Banff's pedestrian zone after residents nix the seasonal fixture?
It's now official: Banff's pedestrian-only zone will be eliminated and vehicles will be allowed to drive the full length of Banff Avenue during the summer mon‐ ths.
The town will do away with its hotly contested carfree area after a binding plebiscite on Monday, when residents narrowly voted against implementing the fix‐ ture on a yearly basis, from the May long weekend to
Thanksgiving weekend.
The issue has been heav‐ ily debated by the town. It di‐ vided residents. Even Park Canada officials got involved.
It concluded with a com‐ munity vote Monday, with 1,328 against the pedestrian zone and 1,194 in favour. The results became official on Tuesday.
Banff town council will now have to pass a bylaw to rescind their original decision that created the vehicle-free space. They'll do that at the next council meeting on Aug. 26.
"There's been a lot of pas‐ sion on both sides of this vote. Residents are emotion‐ ally exhausted from this top‐ ic," said Banff Mayor Corrie DiManno.
"We know what Banff resi‐ dents have had to say, so we will move forward and em‐ brace the result of this vote."
DiManno says dismantling the car-free zone can begin as soon as the day after the bylaw is passed.
Residents divided
Shelley Mardiros has lived in Banff for 31 years. She says she's seen the town go through changes over the years, including population growth and over-commercial‐ ization.
The pedestrian zone, she says, added to the issue.
"The traffic congestion is really appalling, and that makes the areas that are ad‐ jacent to the downtown core into de facto areas of down‐ town," Mardiros said.
"It makes it hard for peo‐ ple who live there … they would ordinarily want to sit outside but they can't be‐ cause of trucks and buses and the fumes going by."
Mardiros says the zone's original purpose made sense - as a pandemic-era measure for shops and restaurants to increase space for their cus‐ tomers. But now that physi‐ cal-distancing measures are no longer necessary, she says there's no reason for it to continue.
But others disagree.
"I love it, it's a bonus to Banff," said resident Terri Hunter. She drives a bus and works in the tourism sector.
Hunter admits there are times when getting across town is difficult due to traffic, but she says that would be the case regardless because of the influx of tourists.
She sees the pedestrianonly area as a big draw.
"I work with tourists all the time, they love that part of it," Hunter said. "It pro‐ motes more shopping to have that street there."
Parks Canada, a petition and a plebiscite
The car-free section of Banff Avenue was first imple‐ mented during the pandemic as a way to cope with restric‐ tions at the time.
It gave businesses an op‐ portunity to expand their spaces, add capacity to shops and restaurants and increase the ability for physical dis‐ tancing.
Mayor DiManno says it added to the town's econom‐ ic viability and helped boost business around the moun‐ tain town.
Shutting down a section of Banff's main street to vehi‐ cle traffic, however, drew controversy and criticism.
Banff National Park's su‐ perintendent sent town council a letter citing con‐ cerns about patio regula‐ tions. That arrived a day be‐ fore councillors were set to approve the municipal budget, which included fund‐ ing the pedestrian zone on a permanent basis.
That letter temporarily paused the vote, but the town eventually did approve the funding.
Then this April, a petition calling for council to repeal its decision was filed. It was signed by 11.5 per cent of residents.
The petition triggered council to make a choice: ei‐ ther rescind the decision or let residents decide.
They picked on the latter. "We heard from a ma‐ jority of residents that [it] was not worth the tradeoff for the pedestrian zone. So we're going to go back to the drawing board, continue con‐ versations and move forward together on addressing these challenges," DiManno said.
"We do have too many ve‐ hicles on our road network, and the tipping point was that there was a detour onto some side streets."