Voted as the country’s most beautiful small towns, Arrowtown now has something else to vote on — the future of its main street.
Until recently, the village’s historic and idyllic Buckingham St hosted both vehicle and pedestrian traffic — servicing the local retail shops, restaurants and museum. But Arrowtown locals have been surveyed for their thoughts for the street while it was car-free.
The Queenstown-Lakes District Council has been conducting road safety work, including a speed table — a speed bump with a flat top so people can walk on it — and some bike parking spaces.
The local community association was therefore taking the opportunity to “gauge public sentiment” over one of the town’s busiest little streets.
Arrowtown Promotion and Business Association Nicky Busst told 1News: “There’s been a lot of word around for many years to completely close it or pedestrianise it to make it a shared space.”
She believed it was a good time, while the work was happening, to understand that feeling in more depth.
Arrowtown considered itself as a working village that catered for both locals and those who travelled to see the former gold mining town. Many business owners 1News spoke to were in favour of the status quo.
Tania McIvor from Unichem Pharmacy Arrowtown said: “We’re used to this being open and having loads of traffic [and] lots of people.
“Some people want to come in and get something quick and get out, so it is quite important for us to have the street open,” she said.
But McIvor did prefer some tweaks to the road — mainly around how long vehicles could park.
“I think definitely changing it from 60 minutes to 10 minutes, 15 [minutes] at the most… just so you can go in and out pop into the pharmacy. But to have it parking longer it’s not needed.”
Other retailers did support full pedestrianisation for safety.
Nick Fifield from the Arrowtown Village Association said, “everyone wants the best for Arrowtown, so we are all trying to compromise and come up with the right solution.”
Shalagh Madigan, who helps run the town’s post office, said: “It’s always good to reevaluate and adapt, and it’s good to gauge opinions from everybody while the street’s closed.”
Tourists in town were enjoying the carless thoroughfare this week. One Kiwi woman said “[I] actually quite like it.”
“My daughter just took a photo of where we got coffee from and she was able to stand on the road and cha-ching,” she said, demonstrating taking a photo.
Two German tourists who were travelling the country for four months said, “it’s better for the people, yeah it’s more quiet”.
All the chat around town had Busst excited about it.
She said, “overall it’s a positive step because you’re actually getting to have your say.”
Buckingham St would be reopened next week with discussion likely to continue for some time yet.