Palo Alto mulls reopening downtown streets as COVID wanes
PALO ALTO — As California gets ever closer to a full reopening, cities that allowed restaurants to take their business outside during the pandemic by closing sections of downtown streets are debating whether to reopen them.
Palo Alto, like other Bay Area cities such as San Jose, San Francisco, Mountain View and Walnut Creek, faces the same tough choice.
On June 22, the City Council is scheduled to consider whether to reopen University Avenue and Ramona Street on July 6 and reopen California Avenue on Sept. 7, according to City Manager Ed Shikada.
At the start of the pandemic, the council gave Shikada the authority to close those commercial streets and keep them that way until the state reopens and most health orders are lifted, which is expected to happen on Tuesday.
Shikada said in a staff report that while the street closures have benefited many of Palo Alto’s popular restaurants and bars fronting University Avenue, Ramona Street and California Avenue, retailers and other businesses on those streets and on side streets have suffered from a lack car traffic.
B8ta, an electronic store on University Avenue, reported to city staff that business dropped 92% in Palo Alto since the pandemic hit. Its other stores in cities without closed streets are recovering much faster, seeing increases in foot traffic of 5% to 10% a week.
Natalie Torres, who owns Lingerie Republique on Bryant Street, said Wednesday that closing streets near her store has “not been the greatest.” Though she does have off-street parking and there’s been a bump in customers lately, Torres hasn’t noticed a huge difference yet.
“Streets opening would be great,” she said. “For now I’m going to just play it by ear.”
It’s a different story for restaurants, however. Many want the streets to remain closed because outside dining has been a lifesaver for them and people are still not comfortable eating inside. Some said they may have to lay off workers if dining is limited to indoors-only again and patronage doesn’t pick up.
Without enough information about the economic impact of fully reopening streets starting in July, Councilman Greg Tanaka said in an interview Wednesday “there are a lot of things we can do to refine” Shikada’s plan to retain the good things that have come out of the street closures.
City staff is already exploring hybrid streetscape designs that would would enable regular closures and openings of University and California avenues to accommodate both cars and people.
“Right now, for the restaurants along University, business has been really great and we want to preserve that,” Tanaka said. “But for retailers it has been very tough. There’s a lot of positives and negatives, so it shouldn’t just be all or nothing, open or closed.”
More data is needed in the meantime from local business owners though, he added. “W’ere flying blind here and I don’t know if that’s how we should be making decisions.”
But Mayor Tom DuBois said he is confident that reopening streets will help downtown business, noting the city could still temporarily close them for special events.
DuBois said he understands the closures have been popular with diners and restaurants, but he’s concerned about the small number of jewelry stores, shoe shops and other businesses that haven’t had many customers and could shut down for good if things stay bad.
“It’s almost a minority right issues in a way,” DuBois said. “We need to think about all the businesses on the street.”
Going “back to normal” will be almost as big a shock to some people as the sudden onset of the pandemic was, he added.
“We’re trying to anticipate how quickly things are going to change and how quickly commuters will be back,” DuBois said. “That’s what we have to be thinking about with these closed streets. Where is the car traffic going to go?”