Help downtown Yarmouth

Downtown Yarmouth, feeling the need to be revitalized, brought their case to town council when the Yarmouth Development Corporation showed up at a meeting and basically pleaded for help from the town.

That’s a good start.

Communities like Yarmouth need to have plans that show their downtown areas are changing with the times, adapting to shopper patterns, trying to keep people around and ensuring the downtown remains an integral part of the shopping picture.

As we said previously in this corner, Yarmouth’s downtown is hardly an attractive place and it’s well past time something was done about it.

What is needed is a plan that spells out exactly what should take place. And there is no need to re-invent the wheel here, as there are numerous examples of towns and cities throughout North America and elsewhere that paint a better picture of their downtown than Yarmouth does.

Basically you could pretty well start from scratch around here. But those charged with the responsibility of making this a better place ought not get bogged down in rules and regulations that end up being something to ponder, argue over and tie up in red tape for months.

Just take an honest look at what exists and ask a simple question: How can we make it better?

If signage is an issue, and it should be, what’s the problem?

Well for starters there’s no consistency in design. And off-site signage rules do nothing to attract people to the side streets of this community. Years ago when the Community Theatre was operating, did it hurt the town and Main Street to have those off-site playbill signs at the corner of Main and Cliff telling people what was playing a block away at the corner of Kirk and Cliff, or did it help? We suggest it helped. Would some sort of off site signage telling people what they can find up John Street help or hurt? Again, we suggest it would help. What’s wrong with a sign that says there are more shops, lists them and even directs people to the post office? Would downtown Yarmouth fall to pieces if there were several informative well-designed signs strategically placed telling people that information? It appears to have fallen apart without them, so what harm would having them do?

We have a tendency around here to get mired in the “it’s always been that way mentality” and it often appears as if the restrictions we impose on businesses run contrary to actually trying to encourage business and the subsequent traffic businesses generate.

Moving off Main Street to Starrs Road we see a shining example of that when we look at Burton Avenue. No off-site signs permitted on the tri-county’s busiest street telling people there are businesses in that huge building on Burton Avenue. Who does that serve? And to make matters worse, restrictive traffic rules that still forbid west-bound motorists turning onto Burton. Does this make any economic sense? Of course not. But it meets our signage rules. They’re working on it, as they say.

The same holds true for Main Street.

We have an arts centre and a library but unless you know that—and we presume most tourists don’t– you’d never know where to find them because there are no signs downtown telling people exactly where they are. What is so wrong with such signs? We have one for the Sweeney museum prominently posted on Main Street by Frost Park, why isn’t there a similar one—remember consistency in design works, folks– pointing across the street to the library? And what harm would be done by having one on the corner of Parade Street pointing the way to Th’YARC? And a similar one at the corner of Collins and Main saying this way to the county museum and archives?

Anyone who travels knows some places even post tasteful signs telling the traveling public where artists have studios. Isn’t anyone around here wondering why any community would do that?

This place could serve as a great model of what to do if you’re trying to keep tourists in the dark about what we have to offer around here and get them to leave town as quick as possible.

And we ought to be ashamed of that and take immediate steps to fix the mess we’re in.