St. John Festival is underway.
Besides the annual climactic event, fireworks over Cruz Bay harbor on July 4th, the arrival of Festival means one big thing to locals - FEWER parking spots.
That’s because Festival Village is being set up in the free, public parking lot by the Customs House and across from the Post Office. So, the lot was closed Friday, the 19th. It will reopen July 7th.
The ‘Village’ is a bunch of plywood and paint booths which become businesses selling food and drink for the week leading up to the 4th. (Wonder if they’re licensed and pay Gross Receipts taxes. And, if so, does anybody audit their sales figures?)
Anyway, with the closing of the lot downtown, they’ve opened the athletic field at the Sprauve School for parking. As you can see from the picture above (red arrow), a few cars are able to use the lot, while a lot of space is taken up by Tropical Shipping trucks. (Inez, a Deputy Inquiring Iguana, took these pictures. Click on them for to see larger versions.)
Now, remember, the Sprauve School is adjacent to the Roundabout project. Fewer parking spaces downtown means more traffic searching for places, with many of them heading to Sprauve and getting tied up in that work.