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www.torontotoday.ca

Kensington Market’s Pedestrian Sundays festival to return in June, BIA says

After the cancellation of the Pedestrian Sunday event in May, the car-free street festival will return on June 29
www.torontotoday.ca www.torontotoday.ca

A coordinator with the Kensington Market Business Improvement Area (KMBIA), which organizes and funds the festival, confirmed to TorontoToday the June Pedestrian Sunday will move forward.

The June Pedestrian Sunday will take place on June 29.

It’s too soon to say if the KMBIA will greenlight the remaining Pedestrian Sundays dates in July, August, September and October. Business owners will discuss again next month whether to hold the July festival, the KMBIA coordinator said.

 
Too soon to say and no certainty. Overall a lack of understanding of current customer demand. Just look at the tiny market street pedestrian area at St Lawrence market. People now sit and meet. Going to the market is now a social event and a better experience than quick in and out of a generic grocery store!

Kensington Markt visionless BIA missed the train seeing what success in Montreal occurred. One car free day on a single Sunday per month is laughable!

The person cited in this article opposed it despite majority of vendors in favor. Also a single person takes care of the survey results and doesn’t disclose the results. Embarrassing!
 
I think pedestrianizing Kensington Market has the potential to be the first domino to fall, but I worry that because it is quite different from other streets and areas, that other BIAs would continue their resistance to "their" stretch of street becoming car-free versus if a portion of King, Queen, or Front St did. I have a loose theory that the car free festivals we have in the summer may cause business owners to continue being opposed to shutting off all cars, because if they don't rent space on the street -- which isn't guaranteed to even be in front of their shop -- few people walk "behind" the street vendors and into the brick and mortar shops; I think if the city did rotating car free roads on weekends through the summer, and didn't have it stuffed with vendors like the typical street fests, more businesses could be swayed to see the upside of thousands of people on foot flocking to the area. I vaguely recall this (roughly) being an idea city staff put in a report about pedestrianized streets.
 
Agree, car free for the full summer without special vendor Firlefanz. Chairs and seating options would already be excellent. Getting my Brezel and beer to enjoy sitting in peace. One can dream!
 
Short question. The web page of the BIA still doesn’t mention the Pedestrian Sunday are happening. I wrote an email and complained. No answer. Sad!

Does anyone know and can provide email address to reach out to?
 
Andy_in_Toronto said:
How about Pedestrian Sunday this month?

No communication by this not very useful KMBIA. Sad!
Click to expand...
After seeing your post I took a quick look and found a post from 2 days ago by Wanda's Pie in the Sky on Instagram that says, "Pedestrian Sunday is back this weekend!"

There's another from the Friends of Kensington Market Instagram from a month ago (posted June 25) that outlines upcoming Pedestrian Sundays, and that this graphic was supplied to them by the BIA. But the BIA hasn't posted this anywhere themselves. Seems bizarre and dysfunctional.

1753545222657.png
 
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