The City of Sitka won’t close downtown’s main thoroughfare on high cruise traffic days in May.
When the Sitka Assembly met on Tuesday (4-8-25), Planning and Community Development Director Amy Ainslie said they’re leaving Lincoln Street open throughout May as a trial run.
“So on March 13, we did take this to the Tourism Commission. They unanimously recommended that we not close Lincoln Street during the summer season,” Ainslie said. “[There was] some mixed feedback from some of the downtown merchants, and so we decided that kind of the middle ground there was to at least trial this for the month of May, to observe and to make plans, and to come back to the assembly.”
For the last three summers, the city has closed Lincoln Street on large cruise ship days, most recently when the number of cruise visitors exceeded 5,000. On street closure days, some vendors set up food carts on the street and a portable restroom was open to the public.
Ainslie said she would be working with the commission to develop additional pedestrian safety measures, like crossing guards and sidewalk attendants. But she thought the city’s agreement with the cruise dock and a new staggering plan could reduce some of the pressure Lincoln Street has experienced on the biggest cruise traffic days.
“We also have some really, which I think are going to be some good operational changes from the dock to stagger cruise ship arrivals and departure time so that folks aren’t all coming into town at the same time, as well as the introduction of a scheduling app that will bus visitors into town at a more consistent, steady flow, as opposed to these large rushes coming into town and leaving town during the day,” Ainslie said.
Ainslie said city staff would present their findings to the assembly at its May 29th meeting before deciding whether to leave the street open for the remainder of the summer months.
