Forty-two years after they were banned from K Street downtown to make room for a pedestrian mall, automobiles will be welcomed back Saturday evening like returning heroes, with speeches, a parade and a lot of honking.

City officials are billing the reopening as part of an effort to guide the street and its environs back to its former bustling glory in the 1940s before Sacramentans migrated to suburbia and shopping moved to suburban malls.

City Council members get the first ride on K just after 4 p.m. Officials say the street should open to regular traffic at 4:30 p.m.

"This is a long time coming," said Michael Ault of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, a property owners' group that has been working to bring stores, restaurants, nightlife and housing to the downtown core. "Right or wrong, downtown's success is often perceived by what's happening on K Street."

This will not, however, be your grandfather's four-lane thoroughfare. The new street will hold only two lanes, one in each direction, and cars will be allowed only on the four blocks between Eighth and 12th streets. The blocks immediately east and west will remain pedestrian malls.

The speed limit is likely to be in the 15 to 20 mph range, and drivers can expect to find themselves at times parked behind light-rail trains as they unload and board.

The point, city officials said, is not to speed more cars through the city. It's to help reintroduce people to K Street, and make the street more attractive as a business location, said Denise Malvetti of the city Economic Development Department.

Efforts by the city and its redevelopment agency to bring more business to K already have had success.

The arrival of attractions such as Ella restaurant and the Cosmopolitan restaurant and cabaret have caused sales tax revenue along K to jump 46 percent since 2005, city data show.

Still, for many Sacramentans, "it's almost a mystery what's in the middle of the block," Malvetti said.

The new street will have its quirks. Parking will not be allowed, although there will be passenger drop-off areas on each block. The city did not put in curbs and gutters. A thick yellow line and a series of planter boxes, benches, curbed tree wells and bollards separate pedestrians from the cars.

City officials say K Street's wide sidewalks will keep the street pedestrian-oriented, but signs are up already alerting pedestrians they now must cross only at intersections, not midblock.

Sid Heberger, general manager of the Crest Theatre, said she's pleased cars will be back on K, but she would like to see the city assess traffic numbers and speeds before it restricts pedestrians. Business owners and pedestrians like the "cross-pollination" that comes from walkers crossing directly to a business.

Some denizens of K Street are bemused by the return of cars, especially considering that light rail now runs on the street.

"Cars, pedestrians, trains and bikes all together? That's kind of crazy!" said John McKee, who works at 12th and K streets.

Alan Barnard, who commutes via bus or train to downtown, said he wants to see the city create more non-car public spaces downtown, not fewer. A bicyclist, he also wonders how well the narrow street with its rail tracks will work for cyclists.

But Mike Herald, a lobbyist who works on K Street and who frequented movie theaters there as a kid, said cars can give the street more life. He added, though, that real vitality on nights and weekends will come only when the city makes good on building more housing for people to live on and near the street. "Opening the street to cars won't fix that," he said.

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