Will Toronto ever make an honest neighbourhood out of Kensington Market and finally ban cars from its narrow streets and lanes?

No part of the city would benefit more from pedestrianization. Still, except for a few Sundays every year, the colourful and hugely popular precinct remains a battleground between drivers and walkers.

Efforts have been made to rid the market of vehicular intruders, but to no avail. As much as anyone, it’s the merchants of Kensington who oppose such a measure. They fear it would hurt business. The same argument is often heard whenever a city pedestrianizes a street, and just as often it is proven wrong.

If history tells us anything, it is that pedestrianization is as good for the bottom line as it is for civic health. This has been the experience of cities as diverse as Glasgow and Paris.

As New York City’s celebrated former transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, likes to say, “Cars don’t shop, people shop.” Renowned for remaking Times Square as a pedestrian-friendly precinct with little more than a few cans of paint, planters and benches, she knows how hard it is to wrest streets from drivers.

“Taking lanes and parking spots can be like taking someone’s first-born child,” she says. “We’ve had 50 years of brainwashing about the car as the primary means of transportation.” Sadik-Khan talks about one Manhattan shop-owner who, convinced that most of his customers arrived by car, was adamantly opposed to any attempt to reduce car access.

“Sometimes you have to stand outside a shop door and count people and how they arrive,” she explains. “When we put in a protected bike lane, his business increased 50 per cent. We’ve got to show people the potential of the streets. We need showcase projects so people can see for themselves. Then people want it. In city after city, you’re seeing increased receptivity; it’s not just about shutting lanes, it’s about making streets safer for everyone.”

Toronto, however, has lagged. We have found it hard to make that step, even when it’s for no longer than a couple of hours. It took Ryerson University eight years to get the city to close a section of portion of Gould St., the campus’ main drag and an overwhelmingly pedestrian district. That was in 2012; since then, nothing has happened.

“When Copenhagen started to pedestrianize its main street in 1962, everyone was exceedingly nervous,” recalls the great apostle of urbanism, Danish architect Jan Gehl. “I remember the acidic debate about getting rid of cars. But it worked out beautifully. Today the city is more beautiful and much safer.”

As he also points out, among the best ways to change nervous minds is the pilot project; close Kensington to cars for, say, six months. Even the hand-wringers could live with that. As well as allowing residents to see for themselves how it works, a pilot would give the city a chance to gather data and measure the results.

“(T)he road tells you how it wants to be used,” writes Sadik-Khan in her just published book, Streetfight. Nowhere more so than in Kensington where narrow streets are so crowded with people cars don’t make logistical sense. Simply put, they don’t belong. Of course, delivery and emergency vehicles are excepted.

Eliminating cars would give Kensington room to breathe; visitors could spread out into the street without worrying about being hit. Perhaps cafe seating would be extended and merchants’ offerings moved outdoors. The neighbourhood might actually become a market in more than name.

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But in a city that still believes its future depends on an expanded urban expressway and subways to suburban malls, it’s no surprise cars come first.