The Sitka Assembly is leaving Lincoln Street open for at least another month. When the assembly met on Thursday (5-29-25), the group agreed that more time was needed before making a decision on whether to bring back street closures on days with high cruise traffic. 

The city has been closing Lincoln Street several times a week for the last few summers of rapid cruise tourism growth- last year, the street was closed to traffic  on days with over 5000 passengers visiting Sitka.

For the first month of this cruise season, the city elected to leave the street open in a trial run. Planning and Community Development Director Amy Ainslie shared her observations of the month-long experiment with the assembly. She said staff observed some sidewalk crowding, jaywalking, and visibility issues, but also noticed that efforts by the cruise terminal to stagger passenger arrivals may be helping ease congestion.

“I know that more operators are picking up their tours or launching from the dock itself, and so not having to meet as many folks here in town to get off the busses,” Ainslie said. “There have also been policy changes at the dock to stagger ship arrivals and to augment the shuttle bus operations, to have a more steady stream of passengers in and out of town throughout the day, as opposed to kind of large rushes in the morning and in the afternoons.”

She said staff and the Tourism Commission had identified Maksoutoff Street as a possible new location for the temporary bathrooms that have been open on Lincoln Street closure days for the last couple of summers. 

Several assembly members voiced support for moving the bathrooms to Maksoutoff Street, and some signaled interest in resuming street closure on high passenger days. Assembly member Kevin Mosher said he likes that the street has been open again, but did have some safety concerns for pedestrians. 

“I’ve seen a couple residents, you know, either rev their engines or kind of stop abruptly, just kind of aggressive type tactics when they’re driving and around,” Mosher said. “A couple of the vendors did say they’ve seen some near misses of people, so that is a concern for me.”

Municipal Administrator John Leach recommended leaving the street open for the summer so the city would have a full season of data to compare to a season of street closures.

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said he could go either way, but his main takeaway from the May experiment was that Sitka needs to move forward with longtime plans to update the main thoroughfare. 

“There are a lot of pros and cons on both sides, and I think they’re all valid points,” Eisenbeisz said. “As someone who, I’ll say, lives down there, lives and works down there, I don’t necessarily have an opinion on this, but I do strongly feel that expediting our Lincoln Street remodel project could alleviate a lot of these concerns in a quite fast manner.”

The assembly ultimately decided that more data is needed, along with more feedback from the Tourism Commission, before making a final decision. That means leaving the street open until at least July, and possibly for the rest of the season.