The Town of Chapel Hill will not preemptively close any roads for Halloween this year and has advised against attending the famous annual celebration on Franklin Street, according to a press release.
In past years, Town officials have closed Franklin Street and surrounding areas to motor traffic from 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. in anticipation of thousands of Halloween celebrators. But this year, the Town will not close any roads in advance.
However, if closures become necessary due to foot traffic, roads will close no earlier than 8 p.m and and reopen no later than 9:30 p.m. in an effort to keep the area open for vehicles.
“If crowd size and safety dictate closing the roadway so people can more safely move around, that’s what we’ll do,” Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue said.
Halloween crowd sizes on Franklin Street have hit as high as 40,000 people in 2015. Since then, attendance has dropped significantly — only 16,000 people attended in 2018.
“It got massive at one point in time, and people were coming from all over the state to Franklin Street, and that was kind of overwhelming for our town,” Mayor Pam Hemminger said. “Over the years, we have tried to create what’s called ‘Homegrown Halloween,’ where we have reduced the size and scale of activities on Halloween evening downtown.”
Blue said turnout is unpredictable, but he expects a smaller turnout than previous Halloween nights because of COVID-19 and the fact that the holiday is on a Sunday.
The Halloween festivities on Franklin Street have not been promoted with videos, as the Town does not want to encourage large social gatherings, Hemminger said.
“We are asking people to wear their masks and to be careful, but we are not going to enforce anything,” Hemminger said. “We are just asking people to be socially responsible.”
