It's not just car drivers, eleven restaurants in the area have closed since the pilot began.
What do you do as a business owner when city is driving away your customers?
Those restaurants were already notorious tourist traps. The restaurants in the area that were any good still remain.
Cars driving by those places was not where they got their business. The city didn't reduce parking lot numbers in the area. They got their business from theatre-goers and other foot traffic.
One of the restaurant owners (who I won't name) decided it would be a worthy protest to place a large ice sculpture of a raised middle finger to pedestrians in the area, and the city at large. That came back to bite him in a serious way. He was already a disliked business owner. That seemed to seal it.
He drove his own business away, not the city. Another restaurant in the strip serving similar fare is still kicking... probably because they're not half bad and offer a better environment.
Restaurants close all the time. Are those closures due to the pilot? The city has provided numbers on receipts which don't show a huge effect. I'm not saying there's no causation here, but you can't just say 11 restaurants are closed and attribute them all to the pilot.
Correlation does not mean causation. Restaurants close all the time for myriad of different reasons. Do you have any data that can actually support a causal link here?
Cars driving by those places was not where they got their business. The city didn't reduce parking lot numbers in the area. They got their business from theatre-goers and other foot traffic.
One of the restaurant owners (who I won't name) decided it would be a worthy protest to place a large ice sculpture of a raised middle finger to pedestrians in the area, and the city at large. That came back to bite him in a serious way. He was already a disliked business owner. That seemed to seal it.
He drove his own business away, not the city. Another restaurant in the strip serving similar fare is still kicking... probably because they're not half bad and offer a better environment.