City officials are hoping for the best, but planning for the worst, as Kingston prepares for the possibility of hundreds of thousands of visitors crowding city streets for next month’s solar eclipse.
Earlier this week the city warned residents as many as 500,000 people may arrive in Kingston to view the rare celestial event on April 8.
But the truth is, there’s no way of knowing exactly how many people will show up for the big show, says Brad Joyce with the city.
And that is making planning tough.
“This is something that we’ve never experienced – the city has never experienced this,” said Joyce, Kingston’s commissioner for infrastructure, transportation and emergency services.
“We haven’t had a total solar eclipse here for almost 700 years and the next one won’t occur here until 2399 so, this is it – this is the big one.”
On the big day, parts of southern Ontario, including Kingston, will be in the path of totality, which means the region will be plunged into complete darkness, something that hasn’t happened here in centuries.
Joyce said Kingston is among the top five sites in Canada for the solar eclipse, and people are traveling from around the world to see it.
While local hotels have been booked up for months, Joyce says exactly how many people will end up watching the eclipse in Kingston will depend on a few factors, most notably the weather.
If Kingston’s forecast calls for clouds or overcast skies on April 8, they expected hundreds of thousands of people will likely thin out as people head to areas along the pathway with better weather, Joyce said.
But if other areas — like Niagara Falls which is expecting up to a million visitors — have bad weather and Kingston is clear, well that’s what Joyce calls “the worst-case scenario.”
“We would have a massive influx,” he said, adding that even under poor-weather conditions the city is expecting as many as 70,000 visitors — more than double the crowds seen for the Tragically Hip’s last hometown show in 2016.
‘We’re trying to do what we can’
Planning for the worst-case scenario means, first and foremost, making sure emergency vehicles can get to Kingston’s downtown hospitals even if streets and roadways are filled with gridlocked traffic, Joyce says.
To that end, Joyce says the city will close King Street from Barrie to Union Street for emergency traffic and transit only on April 8.
Joyce said the city is also looking at putting up a fence around Kingston General Hospital’s helicopter pad and will “dynamically reserve” a lane on Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard to make sure emergency vehicles can get downtown from Highway 401, if need be.
Many civic buildings and services will also be closed on April 8, including City Hall and rec centres, Joyce said.
“At the end of the day, if we get the gridlock that we could potentially get … there’s very little that we can do,” he said.
“That’s why we’re trying to do what we can, at least in terms of trying to protect a route for paramedics, ambulances and other emergency vehicles to access the hospitals.”
Joyce says the city looked at the experiences of U.S. communities that drew massive crowds for the 2017 total eclipse for Kingston’s planning.
Using that data he says officials expect traffic jams lasting four hours if things go well and gridlock lasting up to 15 hours if they don’t.
The biggest concern, he says, is what will happen directly after the eclipse, when everyone wants to leave at the same time.
It’s why several different viewing sites are planned around town, including a free event planned at Grass Creek Park from 1 to 5 p.m.
“Having those sites distributed like that, we’re hoping will help ease that traffic congestion,” Joyce said.
Officials are also asking Kingstonians to avoid driving on the day of the eclipse and if possible, they suggest watching the event close to home.
A full list of everything planned in Kingston for the day of the eclipse can be found on the city’s website.
Joyce says the city will decide whether or not to set up its emergency operations centre based on how the weather forecast is looking on the Friday leading up to Monday’s eclipse.
“If it’s forecast to be overcast and cloudy then maybe we won’t get all of that traffic, which, from an emergency perspective might be good,” he said.
“But I’m sure it would be a huge disappointment to all those solar eclipse enthusiasts who are hoping to see that.”
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