A portion of the street that I live on has been thinking about going pedestrian-only for a few years now. Last summer it was pedestrianized for a few weekends. And this summer, it’ll be pedestrianized until, I think, September as part of a more extensive pilot project. These sorts of moves can be controversial and so our usual approach is to ease-in with a pilot project.

When our condominium board sent out a notice about the pilot project, they framed it as a closure to vehicles. But of course, the other way to frame this is that the street is now open to pedestrians. And since I happen to walk this street every day (and oftentimes multiple times a day), I’ve been tweeting out pedestrian usage updates.

Click here to view on Twitter if the embedded tweets below aren’t showing up for you properly. Spoiler: it’s all working according to plan.

Not every street (or area) is necessarily a good candidate for a pedestrian-first focus. But there are many great examples across the city, including Kensington Market and this stretch of Market Street. So let’s start investing in mechanical bollards, as they do in Europe, and make this pilot a permanent fixture.