Some of you may have heard in the news this week about a proposed event called Open Streets TO. Open Streets TO is a program where the streets are opened to people and closed to cars. People are invited to walk, bike, roller blade along the route. It is a soft closure which means that the east/west route is closed to traffic but the north/south roads are open to traffic.
Open Streets TO are proposing the following:
1. To close Bloor Street from High Park through to the Danforth to approximately Carlaw
2. The street closure for this event would take place on the following 4 Sundays this summer: July 27, Aug. 3, Aug. 17, Aug. 31
3. The street closure would be from 8am to 1pm
4. Businesses along the route would be encouraged to be open during these times so that participants could shop etc.
Your Board Chair, Albert Stortchak, and myself have now attended 2 meetings on this proposal. We have put forward our concerns about having our section of the Danforth closed for 4 Sundays in the summer. The Danforth is already closed for 3 days in August for Taste; and, one Saturday in July for our own signature event Thrill of the Grill. During the most recent meeting this week, our neighbours, The Greektown BIA, stated that they would not be participating and would not allow the event to come through their part of the Danforth.
We have asked the organizers if changes could be made. Our suggestions included only closing for one Sunday or moving the event to September. At this time however the proposal remains as listed above.
We are now asking each of our Business Members to please email us your vote on whether you wish us to participate or not in this event as it is currently proposed.
You can email me directly or you can contact any of our Board members listed above via email and they will be happy to answer any of your questions or take your vote.
We need to hear from you as soon as possible so I ask that you email your vote to us no later than this coming Monday, April 14.
Thank you for your time and assistance with this request - it is greatly appreciated.