Toronto has had a timid approach to pedestrian zones in the past, but the city is now taking creative steps to correct that.

Staff are recommending that Kensington Market close its streets to cars every Sunday, instead of just the last Sunday in the month — the result of an innovative plan to attach a swinging gate to a potted plant.

If the city’s design works, retailers will simply close a gate attached to a street planter on Sundays instead of hauling out rented traffic-control barriers.

It means no lengthy and expensive environmental assessment to change curbs or alter roads, says Fiona Chapman, the city’s manager of pedestrian projects. “Fire services can still get through, which is a big issue any time we try to do something like this. And if the planters don’t work, you pick them up and try something else.”

Historically, retailers have feared that a no-car policy would result in no customers, but pedestrian zones in European cities, including Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Stockholm and Barcelona, have proved otherwise.

In the case of Kensington, Chapman says the city did traffic counts on Sundays and pedestrians vastly outnumbered cars in the market.

“We’ve seen over the course of time that it works, and now we can test it without a big capital investment,” says Chapman. The Kensington Market Business Improvement Area will pay for the upkeep of the planters.

The city has used a similarly innovative scheme to create two pedestrian spaces, one on Gould St. at Ryerson University, and the other on Wilcox St. at the University of Toronto. Planters designate the parameters of the pedestrian space, but they can be moved if fire or emergency services needs to get through.

The city is also looking at a plan to allow summer patios in the curb lane of Market St., which borders the east side of St. Lawrence Market. The plan calls for metal bollards to be installed at the edge of the lane to separate the patios from the traffic. In the winter, the bollards will be removed so the lane can be used for parking.

Chapman says the plan is a brilliant work-around that allows flexibility according to the seasons. “It’s looking at streets and thinking that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing,” she says. “If you can get the right infrastructure in place it can work.”