Lower Bow Street will be closed to traffic to create outdoor patio space for restaurants.
The Cambridge City Council passed a motion to close a block in Harvard Square traffic to allow for outdoor dining spaces on Monday.
Blue Bottle Coffee, Daedalus Restaurant and Sea Hag Restaurant & Bar will have back patio spaces on Lower Bow Street beginning in the spring, according to Cambridge Day.
Between Dewolfe Street and Plympton Street, Lower Bow Street has been closed due to construction for two years “without causing significant impacts on the safety or functionality of the surrounding traffic patterns,” Cambridge Transportation Commissioner Brooke McKenna wrote in a statement to the city manager.
McKenna continued, “This has demonstrated that from a traffic perspective, this location is an excellent opportunity for pedestrianization. In addition, during COVID, the adjacent restaurants, with front doors on Mt. Auburn Street, had robust outdoor dining on Bow Street with great success.”
The type of blockage that will be used to close the street to car traffic has not been determined.
City Councilor Patty Nolan began pushing for automatic bollards that can be lowered with a code, allowing delivery drivers to pass through, in 2020.
“The city continues to have serious reservations about the reliability, maintenance burdens, installation challenges, and cost of automatic bollards,” McKenna wrote in her Sept. 11 statement.
On Monday, Nolan said Bow Street “seems to be an ideal way to try [automatic bollards] because it’s such a small, very specific street.”
In response, Deputy City Manager Kathy Watkins said, “It is just a significant maintenance issue that we feel like there are better solutions that don’t require that level of maintenance and that level of complexity.” She also noted that most of the city’s removable bollards are not reinstalled.
Nolan asked the city managers to consult other cities that use the automatic bollards, noting the bollards are popular in Europe, because she believes they could be a cost saving method in the long term, she said.
“I’m looking forward to all of us being able to go out and sit on Bow Street,” Nolan added.
McKenna said the city will continue to collaborate with the Harvard Square Business Association, Harvard University, and the impacted businesses regarding the pedestrianization of the block.
“All the people who operate businesses there are in favor of” pedestrianization to create outdoor patio spaces, Nolan said.