Open Streets Events

When you close a street to cars, you open it up to so much more

Open streets initiatives temporarily close streets to automobiles, allowing residents to walk, bike, skate, dance and utilize the roadways in countless creative and active ways.

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From Windsor to Thunder Bay, open streets have become a way for cities to build community, promote active transportation and reconnect neighborhoods divided by traffic.

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Collingwood is no stranger to closing the street downtown - the Elvis Festival showed that it can be done. But what if the festival instead focused on the businesses we already have, connecting residents to the merchants and spaces Downtown? 

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A growing movement in North America is the development of School Streets programs. Similar to Open Streets events, School Streets close the streets near schools to cars, but they do it every morning to allow for safe, active travel to school. They eliminate the chaos and congestion in front of the school at drop-off and pick up time, and allow students to move into their day safely and actively. 

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We don't have to close every street to cars every day - but we don't need to keep them all open to them all the time either.