Dundas Place to be car-free more consistently with weekend schedule

City hall is once again considering changes to when Dundas Place transforms into a pedestrian-only street, but the city councillor representing Downtown London doesn’t think the time is right for scheduling weekly closures to traffic.

In a report to the Community and Protective Services (CAPS) Committee, city staff advise councillors of a new Traffic Management Plan for Dundas Place that will launch in 2025.

The changes will include:

• More consistent road closures for planned events on Thursday to Saturday evenings, and daytime on Sundays
• More loading zones for improved access and additional drop-off/pick-up opportunities
• Additional bollards to improve parking compliance
• Removal of turn restrictions to improve driver access (except at Richmond Street)
• Implementation of the seasonal (summer) traffic diversion is no longer recommended

Ryan Craven, manager of Core Area Programs, explains that the scheduled closure times are based on a recent survey of stakeholders, “The general public was really wanting more road closures, more events, and weekend road closures. The businesses’ [feedback] was a bit mixed.”

However, based on that same feedback from business owners, Coun. David Ferreira isn’t convinced about more consistent closures on the weekends.

“Maybe now is just not the right time to do that,” Ferreira told CTV News. “I'm not saying no forever in perpetuity, I'm just saying maybe right now we just put the brakes on.”

Ferreira does support other aspects of the Traffic Management Plan.

“Businesses on the street know their clientele better than [the city] does. They know how their clients get to the businesses better than we do.” he explained.

Craven emphasizes that the closures times take concerns raised by business owners into consideration and would coincide with events taking place for the public.

“Just closing the street does not bring large numbers of people out. What we need to do is have a very specific and high-quality activity [like] a concert or a dance class or something like that,” he added.

Installing more bollards is expected to prevent drivers from parking their vehicles on the sidewalk—a problem that has plagued the curb-less street since its opening.

Additional loading zones along Dundas Place will also reflect the growing demand for delivery services since the flex-street was originally designed.

“What we have come to understand clearly is that we need to accommodate just really quick pop-ins and pop-outs, so that's what we're going to be doing in the first quarter of 2025,” explained Craven.

In late 2019, the four-block pedestrian flexible street between Wellington and Ridout was officially opened following an extensive reconstruction project that removed the curbs, modernized the streetscape, and laid interlocking brick from one end to the other.

Traffic management along the flex street has been evolving ever since.

Recently, the city has block vehicular access during the summer at the east and west ends of Dundas Place in order to discourage cut-thru traffic and make the street more attractive to cyclists.

Earlier this year the speed limit was reduced to 20 km/hr.

The CAPS Committee will consider the new Traffic Management Plan for Dundas Place on Dec. 2.