Did Jasper miss an opportunity to make its downtown better? Or at least safer? 

Now before you get all up in my grill, save your breath (and please wear a mask). I’ve heard the arguments against closing the 600 block of Patricia Street to vehicle traffic: Essential services like grocery stores and pharmacies need storefront parking. How are you supposed to haul your clothes to the laundromat? Seniors can’t walk very far. There’s no room for extra traffic in the alleys or on Geikie Street. The street has no “anchor tenants.” 

I heard all those points last week, and the week before, and the time before that. I heard them loud and clear 13 years ago when, as editor of the other newspaper in town, I advocated for a car-free Patricia Street.

And here I am stirring the pot again. 

Except that I’m doing nothing of the sort. The pot has been stirred many times, by many different straws. It’s no longer a radical idea. Urban planning around pedestrians not only reduces congestion and has low environmental impact, it has social and recreational value.

Urban planning around pedestrians not only reduces congestion and has low environmental impact, it has social and recreational value.

Now please don’t think I’m dismissing the needs of our mobility-challenged residents. But when was the last time you decided to go to the pharmacy, or the grocer, and snagged a spot right outside the store? We’ve all done the Patricia Street crawl, swerving between lanes in hopes that the guy idling in his lifted diesel truck will move just as we pull up. We’ve all waited for an obnoxious amount of time with our blinker on, to no avail. Admit it! Half the time we go hunting for a Patricia Street parking spot we end up circling the block in vain and end up parking two dozen car lengths away anyway. Is this what we’re defending? 

Without bringing up Canmore and Banff’s seemingly successful pedestrian-friendly experiments (oops, just did!), allow me to draw on another small tourism community, one in which I also plied the trade of newspapering. In Sidney, B.C., next to where the ferries unload their passengers at the Swartz Bay terminal, there exists a quaint little night market that takes place every Sunday. I recall a vibrant streetscape with all of the amenities you’d expect at a showpiece festival: artisans, open-air cafés and music. Local businesses (Sidney is also known as BookTown) didn’t dare miss it. 

That was in a community full of retirees, who loved their cars surely as much as we do here in Jasper, long before the term social distancing ever gave residents there a reason to prioritize such a project. 

Every summer, getting around downtown is an exercise in patience. But this year in Jasper, thanks to COVID-19 and the lack of protective measures most downtown denizens seem to be taking, walking the sidewalks is akin to running the gauntlet. Would this not have been the year to try out a pedestrian-friendly Patricia Street?

Did we miss our opportunity? I suppose we’ll find out.

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com