It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, by golly, it’s a zip line over Sparks Street.
If the city approves a proposal by the Sparks Street BIA, four parallel steel lines suspended above the street will allow residents and tourists to glide through the air for a bird’s eye view of the mall.
Les Gagne, the BIA’s executive director, says he hopes the zip lines will attract more people to the historic, but sleepy area.
“Evenings and weekends at Sparks Street are very quiet. Most visitors come here between the hours of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. We want to give people something they’ve never tried before,” says Gagne.
The 300-metre long zip lines above Sparks Street would run side by side from either Metcalfe to O’Connor or O’Connor to Bank streets.
Gagne says the lines would be financed, built and run by Flightlinez, a company which operates a similar attraction in Las Vegas. The only cost to the mall would be promotion.
Jantine Van Kregten, Ottawa Tourism's communications director, is intrigued by the idea, but says it’s too early to make a judgment about the success of the proposal.
”It would get people talking and hopefully bring tourists to the area. Our job is to promote everything new and different about the city, and this would definitely be new and different.”
Alicja Postolek, who runs a clothing shop on Sparks Street, agrees, saying that she believes any changes to the area are a good thing.
“For a long time the area has been in stagnation, but now things are really starting to happen. This would attract a lot of young people to the area, and tourists would come down to see it,” she says.
At L’Ange Café and Mustard Shop down the street, owner Holly Layte is also intrigued by the idea.
“I think it’s super interesting if young people would come down and try it out. It would make the mall more exciting. But I’m not sure it would bring more customers to my shop. Since it most likely will be young people riding the zip lines, the pubs will probably benefit more.”
However, Albert Gabbay, owner of Albert Opticians on Sparks Street, isn’t hooked on the idea.
“When I think of a zip line I think of clowns and a circus. I really don’t think Sparks Street is the environment for a zip line,” he says.
His store has been on the mall for 34 years and he says he believes it doesn’t need zip lines to attract people.
The idea of putting up zip lines is part of the plan to revitalize the entire Sparks Street Mall.
On local website forums participants have expressed concern over the proposal, raising questions such as, “Do we really want screaming children flying through the air?” and “Will it turn the historic street into an amusement park?”
But Gagne says he throws those questions back at the skeptics.
“Don’t they want to hear people having fun? To see all the excitement? If people are pleased with hearing no noise in Sparks Street, then I have a big concern.”
The idea will become an official proposal once engineers from Flightlinez visit Sparks Street to assess the logistical details of the zip lines.
The proposal would then have to be approved by the city.
Gagne says he is aware that many will need persuading, but he believes the zip lines will rejuvenate the once popular street.
He hopes the zip lines will be operational by May or June.
“At the end of the day, there’s never going to be a solution that makes100 per cent of the people happy," Gagne says.