The big downtown improvement project, the one that will turn around downtown, the one that will draw shoppers to the city core in droves, the one that every candidate campaigned for in the 2011 municipal election and the one that every resident was demanding has finally opened.
Well, the work on Fourth Avenue has finished but that's the only thing true about the previous sentence
The $400,000 conversion of Fourth Avenue from a three-lane one-way street to a two-lane two-way street from Winnipeg to Queensway opened to traffic Monday, although with lots of signs, posts and other cautionary signals to help drivers get used to the change.
There's nothing inherently wrong with spending money on a downtown street to help beautify the city core, make it safer for pedestrians and encourage more shoppers but the problem with Fourth Avenue was that there was no problem with it at all. The only folks who seemed against the one-way east-heading downtown throughfare were hired consultants, city planners and the Downtown Business Improvement Association.
It's the job of the DBIA to support any measure that encourages downtown activity in the form of free on-street parking, slower traffic and more pedestrians, all in the hopes that it will entice residents to do their business and shopping in the city centre. But just because the DBIA wants something for downtown doesn't mean it's the best thing for the entire city and its residents.
The idea of changing Fourth Avenue back to a two-way street was like a bad cold that just hung around forever and wouldn't go away. It first came up in 2007 when the city hired a consultant to do a study about parking and transportation issues downtown. Since no one in Prince George actually knows anything (apparently, UNBC and CNC are training factories to crank out students, not places where faculty actually understand stuff), hiring outside consultants to tell all of the ignorant ignoramuses who live here what to do is the way to go. Since Opus Hamilton said Second and Fourth Avenue were a problem, that must be the case and now the city's planning department and city council had a previously unidentified problem that needed fixing.
From there, it migrated to a wish list from the Mayor's Task Force for a Better Downtown in 2009 and then more discussions in 2011 about converting the two one-way streets downtown back to two-way traffic with the help of roundabouts.
Finally the decision was made to go ahead to change Fourth Avenue back to two-way traffic but keep Second Avenue the same for now. Yet outside of hunches and good feelings that doing something, anything, had to be better than what was there before, there seemed to be little data or other evidence to actually show that the one-way Fourth Avenue was an unsafe speedway that was bad for business or that a two-way Fourth Avenue would fix problems that nobody really knew for sure were actual problems.
The only justification seemed to be that making Fourth Avenue like Third Avenue would be better. For starters, on what evidence is that assumption based? And secondly, that makes Third Avenue sound like heaven on earth, which is certainly not the case. Groop Gallery, Northern Hardware, North 54, White Goose Bistro, Evergreen Pharmacy, Home Work and Nancy O's share Third Avenue -- and the back alley behind - with a street population that causes as many problems as these landmark Third Avenue businesses attract customers.
It's these businesses, and others like them, that give Third Avenue its character, not the brick work, the trees or the slower traffic. Fourth Avenue already has its charm and its excellent boutique shops. More stores and restaurants with the same unique offerings and experiences is what will build on that reputation and attract more residents, not altered traffic flow and intersections with lovely bricks in them.
There are other pieces of downtown infrastructure - Four Seasons Pool and the library, to name just two - that could have used a $400,000 shot to the arm more than Fourth Avenue and could have provided better justification for the likely returns on investment.
