Municipality must do more to entice people to shop downtown Kincardine

To the Editor:

I am writing in regards to the support of the downtown Kincardine stores.

While I understand the municipality’s standpoint of giving updates on the Queen Street reconstruction project (these updates are needed because there is a lot of money invested and this project is necessary), I also feel that if the social media and general updates are taken from a different point of view, you'd see a different response. 

The downtown business owners are hurting in more ways than I think people realize. They are worse off than during the COVID-19 pandemic. These are the stores and business owners who sponsor and support minor sports, clubs and events/auctions - can't we support them back when they need it the most?

We need to stop highlighting the nuisance of the project to the public, and start showing the positives and the possibilities of maintaining support and shopping downtown.

Use social media to show daily where the Queen Street crossings are. This would only take a couple of minutes every day. Many people have arrived downtown to shop and the crossings are gone/changed due to work that day, and they get frustrated and turn back or for that matter, due to incidents like this, they don't even try.

Having to walk all the way around from one end of the downtown to the other to get to one store, is hard for some and a nuisance for others, but not impossible! For example, from the back parking lot of CIBC to Little's By the Lake is a lot of walking, versus having the crosswalk at Dairy Queen or Gemini Jewellers which would help people out shopping, especially those with accessibility concerns. Is it possible that the construction company could simply have one or two access points on any given week; maybe this could be looked into?

How many people are we losing every day from these incidents or how many are even attempting? If people know getting to the store(s) they want to go to isn't a nuisance or how to get to them, we would have more people try and fewer going out of town.

The downtown project is making it hard for the elderly and the mobility-challenged to shop ... let alone attempt. The accessibility is not where it needs to be. There are stores where the owners can't put out their ramps due to the sidewalk being cut back. This isn't helping and it's not right. We need this to be accessible. This needs to be fixed by the contractor and the municipality.

Let's show the positive! Let's start highlighting the crosswalks, and the stores (weekly specials, promotions, new brands or new items - highlight various stores daily). There are ways to entice people downtown and there are ways to show the public, the social media world, that while it's not perfect, you can still shop downtown Kincardine.

We are approaching the tourist season; if locals aren't going downtown, how can we expect the tourists to do so? If we all shop downtown a couple of times a week, it can make a big impact.

A. Ruthven
Tiverton