More time is being added to allow pedestrians to freely roam downtown St. Catharines.
Vehicles are barred from the downtown core for a portion of the weekends to allow restaurants and businesses to stretch out onto the street, allowing more room for physical distancing.
St. Catharines Councillor Mat Siscoe says an extra hour has been added to the vehicular ban on Fridays and Saturdays, and now the initiative will stretch into Sunday as well.
"We heard from restaurants and we heard from other businesses - we heard from residents saying, 'Listen, we love this. But we want Sundays available as well. And so even though the initial decision was only made about 2 months ago for the initial street closure ,some businesses came to the Downtown Association and said, 'Listen, we'd like to expand this out to Sundays.'"
The streets will be closed to vehicles Fridays and Saturdays from 4 p.m. - 11 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. starting today.
St. Paul Street will be blocked off from William to Carlisle and from Bond to Court Street, with a break to allow access to the downtown bus terminal and parking garages.
Currently, the closures are scheduled to continue until October 10th, but if requested council may approve another extension.