As soon as this month, city officials said they plan to reopen West Pearl Street to cars, a move that would bring the pedestrian-friendly transformation ushered in by the Covid-19 pandemic to at least a temporary end.
Pearl Street was closed to traffic between 9th and 11th Streets since May 2020, so restaurants could serve food and alcohol outside when coronavirus precautions limited indoor dining capacity. At the end of August 2022, City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde lifted the emergency measure that allowed restaurants to use public sidewalks and streets. Nearly all businesses have since cleared out their tables and tents along West Pearl. Only concrete barriers block cars from passing through.
“The reasons to keep it closed no longer exist,” Cris Jones, the interim director for the Community Vitality Department, told Boulder Reporting Lab.