Have you taken the pledge?
The Town of Huntsville is encouraging visitors, residents, families, and employees of downtown businesses—in other words, you!—to take the Healthy Huntsville pledge as a promise that when you visit downtown to shop, eat, go to an event, or go to work, you will park a few blocks away and walk to Main Street.
“There are lots of available parking spots a couple blocks back from downtown in all directions,” said Rebecca Francis, Policy and Project Coordinator for the Town of Huntsville. “We are encouraging people to take that as an opportunity to get in a five-minute walk to their destination and also have an easier time parking.” Spots just a few blocks from Main Street are more readily available and you can also park in them for longer.
And if you want to get a few more steps in, Francis also encourages people to use the lot adjacent to Huntsville High School and across from the Canada Summit Centre at the corner of Brunel Road and Park Drive. At just four blocks from Main Street, it’s less than a 10-minute walk.
You can find a Healthy Huntsville parking map online here.
There are prizes to be won, too. Anyone can take the pledge and it’s easy to sign up online. You’ll get a removable vinyl sticker that you can put on the windshield of your car to let everyone know that you have taken the pledge. Then, when you visit downtown Huntsville, take a photo of your walk or a selfie of you enjoying a local shop or restaurant or event, and share it on Facebook or Twitter. Be sure to tag #healthyhuntsville. Each photo per visit equals one entry in a draw for great prizes at the end of the summer, including Downtown BIA Dollars, prizes from Algonquin Outfitters, and recreation passes for the Canada Summit Centre.
In the spirit of friendly competition, the Downtown Huntsville BIA and Algonquin Outfitters, in partnership with the Town of Huntsville, have also issued a corporate challenge for employees at downtown businesses to take the pledge.
“There are lots of parking options downtown and all of them are a short walk to Main Street,” said Francis, adding that even if you aren’t participating in the pledge, be aware of the time limits on parking spots and choose yours based on how long you’ll be downtown. Those on Main Street and nearby are two-hour spots, while those more than two blocks away are usually full-day spots. “The time you spend circling around to find a spot could be spent enjoying a two or three minute walk from a parking spot that was easy to find.”
So why take the pledge? It’s healthy for both you and for Huntsville. Walking can lower your risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and some cancers. It puts you in a better mood, boosts your concentration, helps to fight depression, gives you higher energy levels, and contributes to both better sleep quality and lower stress. And less time spent in cars leads to less road congestion, better air quality, and a better sense of belonging and pride in our community. “It’s not that far, there’s lots of spots available,” said Francis. “And you can see the town—you never know what you might see that you haven’t noticed before by getting to know the town from a pedestrian perspective.”
For more information about Healthy Huntsville, visit huntsville.ca/healthy and watch for more initiatives in the future!
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This is all “nice” and to have a lovely pedestrian more friendly downtown might also be nice. I say “more” friendly as the downtown part of Huntsville has always been pretty good for pedestrians, ever since I can remember we just cross the road where we more or less like and the cars always, (at least in the normal part of the year when the % of big city drivers is lower) simply slowed or stopped for our crossing. We shared fairly well I thought.
When shopping however one must unfortunately face the reality that pretty much all the shoppers arrive in Huntsville by car, or these days massive SUV or small truck! This is the reality because when you live outside the downtown part of Huntsville there simply is no transit available that might work.
Now when I shop I usually need to carry what I bought to that ugly, un-environmentaly friendly vehicle. At my age you can bet I’m not going to carry much weight over the two to four scenic blocks back to my car so this will pretty much rule out any kind of commerce downtown except restaurants, entertainment venues, maybe lawyers and bookkeepers and a few souvenir or fudge shops. No, for the big stuff I have little option but to “go to the mall” or one of the more out of the way, stand alone retailers (like Leons or Canadian Tire as an examples).
The other option is that the store delivers to me. Some already do this but for retail this puts them in competition with the internet and Amazon where I can shop from anywhere and they will deliver to anywhere and usually for a cheaper price than any retail store to start with.
The exception has always been the construction industry, concrete and 2 x 4’s get delivered to job sites and always have and will be for any sizeable job but there is no longer any building supply store in the downtown, they having all been chased out long ago due exactly to the parking issue for one.
This scenario will not change with electric cars, this will merely change the energy source, not the traffic.
Remember our weather too. There are about 5 months of the year when a lot of those scenic sidewalks to the back lots are not very user friendly and the parking noted in this plan ceases to exist, being replaced with large banks of snow. To our fortune, not many people use the town during this time of year but if they ever do, don’t count on these hundreds of parking spots to be “available”. It is often an issue just to find cleared spots on the main street. The malls on the other hand are usually kept pretty much snow free.
People say the mall parking is “free”. It is not of course, you pay for it as part of your purchase price of the goods you might buy but you get the psychological feel that it is free and this is vastly a nicer feeling for a car owner than worrying about 2 hours , one hour or feeding a meter. Although parking fees are not significant to most individuals they have a vastly greater effect on our feelings for an area than the actual cost would at first indicate. The hospital parking is a good example. I consider it a bit of a “donation” to the hospital and that makes it better but I see a lot of people who will go to great lengths to avoid this parking lot and it’s fees. Of course if your sick and need the hospital you probably don’t care about the cost of parking anyway.
The bottom line for me is that I hope the planners consider some of these realities when they do their planning. I’m afraid looking at a map and saying there are 700 or so parking spots available will simply not cut reality when the weather is poor or the purchase is big or the person is not fit and in their first half of life.
There are disabled spots downtown but perhaps there should be more with the aging population ( ME ) !
Fantastic idea, Rebecca: Why am I not surprised? With respect to Ms. Potts (1st comment), perhaps we should introduce a few priority parking spaces close to our main attractions. We seem to have sufficient designated disabled parking spaces; but we haven’t recognized our seniors (and others), who can’t qualify for a sticker, but do have difficulty with distances from 15m to 30m.
Yes, we must try to care for all.
Perhaps a hop on, hop off ‘Jolly Trolley’ as Clearwater Beach has. Great signage at pickup spots from parking lots etc, drivers dressed Muskoka Style & phamplets & coupons on board advertising businesses & events. These small buses look like trolleys, have accesssible entries & are very successful.
In theory this makes sense, but some of us are not able to walk as well as we once did. Perhaps street parking should be designated for seniors.