Downtown Cambridge’s ‘Summer Crawl’ could become a year-round fixture

While it closes every summer for events and patio season in downtown Cambridge, Main Street between Ainslie and Water Streets could soon become a pedestrian-only space permanently.

A motion was brought forward to Cambridge City Council on Tuesday evening, calling for staff to conduct a study on the possibility of turning the popular portion of the downtown into a permanent closure.

As of now, the street is closed to vehicular traffic between the months of May and October, allowing for a better-defined pedestrian area during the summer. This has garnered plenty of support since it began, with businesses in the area saying how beneficial it is during the warmer months of the year.

“The street was somewhat tumbleweeds, you know, the broken glass here and there and some unsavoury things here and there too,” Terry Polyak, a business owner and Cambridge resident, said. “I look at it now and I think about how far we’ve come just in these past four years and largely due to the street closure that we’ve been enjoying for these four years.”

The motion was introduced by Ward 6 Councillor Adam Cooper, unanimously being passed by the rest of council. With the approval in hand, city staff can now look further into what a permanent option could impact in the area, along with diving further into the financial implications as well.

“All of these kind of things that could be looked at if it was a permanent closure, (it) would certainly support more events, larger events, and would certainly draw people,” Brian Kennedy, Executive Director of the Downtown Cambridge BIA, said. “It would be a big component to tourism in the downtown.”

Kennedy was one of the presenters of the idea for council, pointing to the importance of such a move for the businesses that could be impacted, allowing for additional foot traffic throughout the year. He says having a permanent option would aid the area across the board in countless ways, especially when compared to the current system.

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“The trade-off is that everything on the street needs to be temporary, so it can’t necessarily look the best that it could. It doesn’t mean that it necessarily provides the best support for events and I think we would all agree; the more events that happen on the street, the more people that will come out.”

Polyak says it doesn’t just benefit locals in the community, who use the “Summer Crawl” daily, but it has further implications on the city’s overall tourism appeal.

“It’s major street enhancement and more people living right here on Main, local, and elsewhere for that matter too. I’m getting positive comments from people that are first timers from here when they come down. They’re just blown away with the downtown core,” said Polyak. “We need to pick up on the momentum that we’ve created and enhance all of this, not only just for us downtown, the people in the local area but also the whole tourism side of things where we have to bring other people from other municipalities in to enjoy what we’re creating.”

Now that the motion for a staff study has been approved, members now have time to draw up the report, currently set to be discussed further before deciding on next year’s budget.