So, at the end of 2021, Chiefs of Bolesky, along with some of our other staff that were
working downtown, noticed that there were large crowds gathering at bar clothes and
some of the other restaurants that were closing, a lot of traffic congestion.
And so, the beginning phases of this is we met with some of our downtown partners.
What we came up with were these pedestrian loading zones and eventually tying our cab
stand ordinance into this.
This is a year-round ordinance that's in effect.
It's for Thursday through Saturday night into early Sunday morning, 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.
The locations of these are 600 Block of MP Avenue, going to be the 600 Block of 2nd Avenue
North right in front of our downtown post office, the 500 Block are right at 6th Avenue
and Broadway, and then 4th Street and 1st Avenue North.
There's going to be one more at 3rd Avenue and 5th Street North, but it's not going
to be open due to construction in the area.
Once that construction is complete, that will be our fifth one that opens up.
Another thing to talk about is that this is just for pickups, not for drop-offs.
And so, as long as you're a rideshare driver, as long as you're a cab driver, or whoever's
dropping you off downtown, if they're dropping you off, being all traffic and parking ordinances,
you can drop off anywhere in the downtown area.
This is just for picking up.
We're going to analyze how these work.
We're going to be watching, not only gathering information from our officers that are out
seeing people use these loading zones, but also we're going to be looking for feedback
from the community.
Are these things working well?
Are they not working well?
We have a great downtown and a lot of really cool businesses and great places to visit.
This provides a safer way for someone to use a rideshare cab company or get picked up by
a friend or family member in a well-lit area that is going to be frequented, not only
by a law enforcement patrol, but by a rideshare and cab company that's looking for people
to use their services.
This is a very exciting thing for us to implement downtown.