Police plan to install more barriers for use during Old Town’s prime clubbing hours
If you’ve been in Old Town on Friday and Saturday nights lately, you might have noticed some new barriers blocking traffic on two streets. More are on the way.
The black drop-down arms affixed with red-and-white reflective signage and a “Road Closed” warning are the newest ways Wichita police say they are protecting pedestrians from getting struck by vehicles during prime clubbing hours in the city’s entertainment district.
“They’ve been down there for months,” Lt. Drew Seiler, a third-shift supervisor at the department’s Patrol East Bureau, said. “They’re nice. They’re aesthetic. And if you drive down there you probably wouldn’t even know what they were” when they’re not in use, he said.
“It’s greatly helped us out with directing traffic and protecting pedestrians.”
Seiler said right now there are eight barriers installed on two of Old Town’s busiest stretches — on Rock Island and Mosley streets between Douglas and First.
But there are immediate plans to place more a block north, on Rock Island and Mosley between First and Second streets.
Parking, both in lots and on the street, is still accessible when the barriers are being used. They’re lowered between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights but could be used other times when activities draw large crowds to Old Town, Seiler said.
They’re raised during daytime business hours.
“They look like railroad signs, straight up vertical with the black and white reflective tape,” Seiler said, adding that the barriers “were built aesthetically so they blend in” with the light poles and other Old Town elements.
“They’re durable. They’re easy to replace. There’s not a whole lot that goes into the construction of them. And they’re set up for ease of the officers to put down in a quick-response type situation.”
Charlie Claycomb, a board member and past president of the Old Town Association, said the group is “on board” with installing the barriers. He said one of the problems they address is “cars driving around in circles through crowded streets” when Old Town is busiest.
“It’s gotten so much more family friendly and pedestrian friendly” in the area, Old Town Association president Debra Fraser said.
“I think that this is really going to help.”
Seiler said the police department designed the drop-down barriers and got help from the city’s parks department to build them to save money. They didn’t require approval from the City Council to install, he said.
Police used to use patrol cars and traffic cones when they needed to block off Old Town’s streets so pedestrians could get to businesses and back to their cars or homes safely.
But that was time and labor intensive because officers have to fetch and set up cones then haul them back to storage at the end of the night. And if an officer blocking a street with a patrol car had to leave to respond to an emergency, the street would be left open, he said.
At first the department considered installing barricades that pop up from the street. But the cost to install and replace those kind when they’re damaged was too high to be feasible, Seiler said.
“If you hit them with a car you got to replace that whole structure all the way down. So it’s just not cost effective,” he said.
“These here we built for pennies on the dollar.”
