The Examiner might as well have printed a headline that says “Snow expected this winter.”
It’s unlikely the town could have stopped the twin juggernauts of Walmart and Home Depot. But it actually welcomed them and, like somebody assisting at their own execution, even allowed the operation of a shuttle bus from downtown to Walmart. But this was merely the latest ingredient in a “perfect storm” of stupidity.
We moved the town hall out of town, along with its employees, its clients and its visitors.
We located our new recreation centre, municipal theatre and high school well north of downtown. When merchants complained, we arranged a bus to bring students into town at lunch hour at a buck a ride and couldn’t understand why nobody used it.
Now we’re about to relocate the library.
We installed extra parking meters and, in case that wasn’t a big enough disincentive, we then increased the parking rates. We diverted traffic away from downtown with the new High Falls northern bypass and still plan something similar to the south. We hassled restaurant owners who wanted to open sidewalk cafés and we dug up Manitoba Street at the height of the tourist season.
While even tiny communities like Port Sydney attract visitors to their winter carnivals, we cancelled ours several years ago. But without something like Huntsville’s hugely successful Festival Of The Arts, there’s not much reason to go downtown in the summer either.
The one thing we have encouraged downtown is trucks. Big trucks. Noisy trucks. Dump trucks. Smelly trucks. Tanker trucks. Tandem trucks. Sewage trucks. Dusty trucks. Manitoba Street is indeed a year-round truck watchers’ paradise.
There are many communities in North America where the business district has rotted away after the arrival of Walmart. It is not a unique problem.
However, Bracebridge is unique in assisting and accelerating the decay.
Dick Smyth
Bracebridge