Watch CBS News

K Street Back Open For Cars But Businesses Not Seeing More Customers

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- Businesses everywhere are hoping to get a boost from holiday shoppers.
But on K Street in Sacramento, they're relying on cars to drive in new business.

It's been more than a week now since the area was reopened to cars, and businesses contacted by CBS13 said they have noticed an uptick in customers.

"I have had a few people on the weekends come in and say 'we didn't know you were here, we drove by and stopped,'" said Kim Anderson, the manager of Ambrosia Café on the corner of 11th and K.

Anderson says that's a good sign but that after a week and a half of cars being allowed to roll down K Street for the first time in 40 years, she says there has been no noticeable difference in business.

"I think eventually it will bring more people down and if a small percentage of those people come, in that's great," she said.

Next door, Pyramid Alehouse said the same thing. There's been no change in the number of customers.

And despite the street being open to traffic for more than 10 days, we saw very few cars on it at all on Tuesday afternoon.

David Wiley lives in downtown Sacramento and isn't happy K Street opened up.

"Every downtown should have a tranquil, peaceful, traffic-free area," he said. "There's no parking, so there's no reason to have traffic."

And that's one of the main reasons people downtown are not convinced the change will help business, the lack of parking.

"I have not noticed that big of a difference in the area," said Bob Stewart of Granite Bay.

But Anderson says she's still happy with the change. She says people still aren't used to driving down K Street, but they'll learn.

"It's still really weird to see cars down there," she said.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.