‘CAR!’ — Mom has street closed so kids can play
The idea came to Masha Ribich during a block party last year. She and a half-dozen other families in Westmount were sharing food on picnic tables while their children played together on the blocked-off street.
She realized how rare it was to see her young kids playing on the road, which is narrow and usually full of cars. The family lives close to several parks, but simple games like street hockey aren’t possible in the park or safe on their street.
“We as adults are always trying to find opportunities for them to play,” she said. “Play could be a lot easier and accessible.”
When she learned that in some cities, parents organize regular street closures for the purpose of children’s play, she brought up the idea with her neighbours and worked with the Westmount Community League and the City of Edmonton to get part of her street closed on June 3.
The closure coincides with 100 In 1 Day, a global festival that encourages residents to run small community-building projects in their neighbourhoods. From 1:30 p.m. until 4 p.m., 126 Street between 109A Avenue and 110 Avenue will be closed to vehicle traffic and divided into three play zones for children on the street.
One zone is for biking and scooters, another is for free play and the third is for games like street hockey and broomball.
Shutting down part of a street for a few hours isn’t easy. Ribich had to run the idea by all of her neighbours, prove that the community league had adequate insurance and work with the city’s office of civic events to secure a permit and other details. She also had to inform all of her neighbours in advance of the closure. The city asks people to apply for permits at least eight weeks before estimated event dates and there are associated fees, which she had waived because the event was part of 100In1Day.
Other cities have streamlined the permit process and removed fees to make it easier for neighbourhoods to schedule regular play streets. More than 350 play streets have been held since 2013 in Seattle, where the Seattle department of transportation has a formal free-permit program, and communities in Ontario and Quebec have also been experimenting with similar projects.
According to Julie Stormer, the city’s festival and events supervisor, other groups in Edmonton have expressed interest in play street closures, but Westmount is the first she’s aware of to put the idea in action.
Public health experts have been sounding the alarm for a long time about Canadian children’s low levels of physical activity. The 2016 Particip-ACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth gave Canadian children a D+ for active play and a D- for overall physical activity. The report recommended challenging municipal bylaws and school policies that “restrict opportunities for active outdoor play.”
Researchers in Belgium, where play streets are plentiful, studied whether they affected children’s levels of moderate-intensity to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time. According to the results of a study published in the International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity in 2015, the intervention was effective in increasing MVPA and decreasing sedentary time. Play streets also had positive effects on social interaction in the neighbourhood, with 60 per cent of parents saying they had more social contact with their neighbours as a result.
The idea has drawn criticism in other cities from residents who complain about noise, unsupervised children, potential property damage and the inconvenience caused by road closures.
That’s why Ribich and other community volunteers surveyed neighbours first and designed the June 3 event with their concerns in mind.
They plan to hold a second play street event in late summer or early fall and, if the concept works, propose a more frequent closure schedule.
Although the June 3 event will be fairly structured, the hope is for children to eventually organize it themselves and parents just take care of the paperwork.
“I’d like to see it grow, improve my neighbourhood and improve things elsewhere in the city,” Ribich said.