Last Chance To Experience Waltham's Moody Street Pedestrian Plaza

WALTHAM, MA — There's just one Saturday left in October. And that means one last Moody Street Pedestrian Plaza marketplace. For the past three Saturdays, Moody Street has turned into a pedestrian plaza, sans cars, thanks in large part to a group of community organizers. The group, with the help of the city, created a car-free fall marketplace in an effort to bring more shoppers to the business district.

Each Saturday in October the city has shut down three blocks of Moody Street - from Pine to Taylor streets - to car traffic and open the street to sidewalk sales, the Waltham Farmers' Market, music and a festival-like atmosphere from 7 a.fm. to 3 p.m.

Although it may have seemed to pop up out of nowhere, there was a lot of thought and effort behind the experiment, say organizers.

Mark Rudnick co-founder of the Waltham Farmer's Market said when he travels he connects most to the places that exclude cars in favor of gathering places for community members. For the past decade or so, he's batted around the idea with fellow community members about bringing something like that to Waltham.

"I spend a lot of time working on Moody Street, and I always looked at it as a place that would benefit from pedestrianization," he told Patch in an interview.

Separately community organizers like Rudnick and Martha and Leo Creedon of the market and Doug Waignbright and Lisa Lorgeree of the Waltham Downtown Partnership and business owners like Bob Marcou of Marcou Jewelers had talked or thought about doing something like this for years.

And then, mini road closures for things like the Moody Street 5k, River Fest and the parade and block party showed them the road closure can be done. So they got serious about it. Rudnick and the Creedons brought their idea to the Waltham Downtown Partnership and the flame was lit.

"This really seemed like the time, now," said Martha Creedon. "There's a lot of pedestrianization happening right now. I think people are just sometimes getting sick of being surrounded by the noise and the fumes and not being able to see anything when you're just driving by."

On Sundays, Marcou heads to Memorial Drive to ride his bike. And recently he went up to Burlington Vermont, where an entire street has been closed off to cars to make a pedestrian-friendly experience.

"I thought, if they can close down Memorial Drive we can do something like that here occasionally," he said. "Things like this can be done with very little inconvenience."

The group was convinced that creating a pedestrian friendly shopping experience on Moody Street could help revitalize the area.

"We are certainly hoping that the merchants see this as a good opportunity," said Rudnick. "We want people to recognize that having a rush of cars drive down the street is not an enhancement. They're just going from point A to point B. Getting rid of that gets people to really focus on the merchants."

Lorgeree said the Downtown Waltham Partnership is hoping that doing things like this will draw crowds and then, in turn, draw businesses.

The group then took their proposal to the mayor, who had just been asked by someone to bring back sidewalk sales of yore, dubbed "Krazy Daze." Again, the timing was right, said organizers. With the city onboard, they sat down with traffic and safety officials to work out detour details for cars, and a safety lane for emergency vehicles.

"The city of Waltham has been a tremendous support. We couldn't have done it without their help," said Lorgeree, praising support from councilors Robert Logan and Cathyann Harris, as well.

And so far, feedback from both businesses and passers-by has been positive.

"People are loving it. Vendors are selling out of their stuff. And It's growing," Lorgeree added. "When were done at the end of the day, we're like wow this really made a difference."

Organizers say about 20 businesses have participated and some, once seeing how many people were shopping decided to opt in. Lorgeree estimates between 2,000 and 3,000 shoppers have strolled through the plaza on any given Saturday.

"Pedestrian malls like this resonate so much with everyone that even people on the traffic commission were like 'gee I'd like that for my community'," Leo Creedon said. "There's been an overwhelming sense is thank you for bringing this to our downtown. It's a lovely thing."

After the final marketplace event is over Oct. 26, the group will take stock of how things went, poll area businesses about whether this helped business.

"It feels nothing but wonderful, but this needs a sober analysis," said Rudnick. "My vision is we figure out what the best thing is to make Moody Street as vibrant a street as possible. If this helps we'll do it [more] if not, we'll think of something else. "

Harris is an enthusiastic supporter of the pilot and the group who worked to make it happen.

"This collaboration is incredible. You have an incredible group of people coming up with ideas and energy to help bring business and community downtown," she said. "This is the start of many things."

If you have feedback about the plaza pilot, reach out to the Downtown Waltham Partnership or your city councilors.

Previously: Waltham To Pilot Pedestrian Plaza On Moody Street - Patch

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).