Saint John Santa parade to bypass causeway
Santa has brought Saint Johners an early present this year: Less traffic caused by his parade.
The 66th annual Saint John Santa Claus Parade, which starts at 6 p.m. on Saturday, won't be blocking the Courtenay Bay Causeway.
The parade has new organizers, including Blaine Harris, the chair of the Saint John Santa Claus Parade committee.
"Those that have been familiar with the Santa Claus Parade will be very happy to know the causeway is open this year," he told Information Morning Saint John.
"It alleviates all the traffic jams from people trying to head east or come from east into the city centre."
We're trying to minimize the commercialism of the parade - Blaine Harris, chair of the Saint John Santa Claus Parade committee
For the last five years, the nighttime parade has shut down all four lanes of the causeway.
"It was more just of a pain so we tweaked that area," Harris said.
New route, new floats
The staging area was moved to Crown Street, Harris said, and the parade will end on Wellesley Avenue, where there isn't that much traffic, so float riders can disembark safely and people can all disperse in one direction.
The parade will leave Crown Street at Union Street, go up Union to Sydney Street, make a left on Sydney, a right on King Square North, a left on Charlotte Street, then go down King Street, where it will follow St. Patrick Street over to Main and follow Main to Lansdowne Avenue, then to Wellesley Avenue, where it will end.
Streets on the route will be closed off during the parade, but will reopen as the floats finish moving through. The uptown is expected to be clear by 6:50 p.m., according to the parade website.
Harris said organizers have tried to decrease the number of commercial floats, focusing more on community and small local businesses.
"We're trying to minimize the commercialism of the parade," he said. "We're looking for some commercial content but we're also looking for community content people that are small business community groups, thing like that."
That may have lowered the number of floats, Harris said, but it won't hurt the parade.
"The average last year was 60 this year we're at 53," he said.
Collections for Santa
Canada Post workers are taking a quick break from their labour dispute to make sure Santa gets all his letters. Workers will be collecting them from kids Saturday.
"I'm very happy and thankful that Canada Post has done that," Harris said.
CUPE members will be collecting food just prior to the parade, and the New Brunswick Community College will be collecting coats for kids.
No amalgamation
Harris said it's unlikely the uptown parade will be joining the Lancaster parade because they're too different.
"The uptown parade is a nighttime parade to which people are looking for light, they're looking for that atmosphere," Harris said.
"The Lancaster Santa Claus Parade, on the other hand, is a daytime parade, where people are looking for floats that they really see some time and effort, some creativity put into them … It's daytime versus the nighttime."
