Sixth Street reopening 'beneficial' so far, Austin police chief says ...Middle East

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- The originally planned time period to test out reopening Sixth Street to cars is wrapping up. The goal of this program is the break up stagnant, late-night crowds that often become unruly – and sometimes violent – Police Chief Lisa Davis said.

The city initially said the pilot would run until South by Southwest. Sixth Street will close back down to vehicular traffic during SXSW to accommodate additional crowds and pop-up events.

'Pinch point' still exists at 6th and Trinity

Chief Davis has spent most of the past six weekends on Sixth Street observing the changes for herself.

One of her initial takeaways, when KXAN spoke with her the first Friday night of the pilot, was what she called large crowds continuing to gather outside the bars near Sixth and Trinity Streets. Most of those people, she said, aren't actually going into any of the businesses.

That's something she continues to see.

"There's some popularity in just standing in front of these clubs," she said. "It's really looking [at] why that dynamic exists and how we change it."

Davis said the city purchased stanchions for these bars to help organize lines and keep people from lingering if they're not going to go inside.

"I think it's incumbent on [the bars] to assist with that, but we're there as well," she said. "That does take extra employees to manage that, and to get people in there, because what happens is they start getting busy inside and of course they want to bring that person inside, so it's more on working with them on how they manage that."

APD has had to re-close the street some nights

APD said there have been instances when officers have had to briefly close Sixth Street back down to cars to ensure public safety.

Davis said this primarily happens around bar-close.

"I think when the bars close and you're getting that influx of people coming out, it's really about training people to go use those side streets and walk around instead of just coming straight up and down Sixth Street," she said. "It's really just kind of retraining. You know, this has been something that's been on Sixth Street for decades, so it's really about 'how do we manage this and get people used to the new way of doing things?'"

Davis said the temporary re-closures have not been related to people trying to jump over or knock down the temporary fences that are up between the sidewalk and the street.

When APD does close the street back down, Davis said officers have been able to shuffle people back to their cars - or other rides home - more quickly, which has helped limit the late-night gatherings the pilot aims to prevent.

"At the end of the night, when we do close it down, it gives the officers the chance to move into the middle, the horses can come out to the middle where there's no cars, the officers on the horses have better visibility," Davis said. "Having officers there telling people 'time to move on, time to move on, the bars are closed,' that's been beneficial as well.

Pilot will help create roadmap for permanent infrastructure changes

"We're doing after action reports almost every weekend," Davis said. "Documenting 'what did we see, what did we need this weekend, what do we need moving forward?'"

The fences that separate the sidewalk from the roadway are not meant to be permanent. The long-term goal, she said, is to physically widen the sidewalk.

"That will take time," Davis said.

In the meantime, city staff are using the data gathered during the pilot to see if it makes sense to install bollards or any other types of barriers.

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