Arbutus Greenway “Option Lands”

We were contacted by a few members who expressed some concern that this would mean that there wasn’t going to be a good link between the northern end of the greenway (currently designed up to W 5th Ave) and the Seawall.

Importantly, one of the primary objectives for the north end of the greenway is to connect it to the False Creek Seawall and Granville Island. The good news is that the approved Arbutus Greenway Design Vision does actually propose routing to make this connection – as illustrated in the map below.

Arbutus Greenway – Northern Extension options

The lands currently in question – known as the “option lands” – were part of the original negotiation with railway Canadian Pacific, and identified as such in during the public engagement process. The initial deal (“Purchase Agreement”) allowed CPR the potential to repurchase these lands if they were ever rezoned. This was seen as a trade-off in an overall negotiation that saw the City acquire the 9km corridor for public use. Without the “Option Lands” incentive, an agreement with CPR may not have been reached, as this formed a key part of the negotiation and meant the City was able to purchase the Corridor for $55m – roughly a third of what CPR had originally proposed.

As we understand it, part of what made this more palatable during negotiations were technical and safety concerns that the existing rail right-of-way was insufficiently wide, and challenged by unsafe street crossings, to accommodate the multi-modal aspirations associated with the greenway. Walking, biking, streetcar and other public realm improvements are meant to be part of the design, and the City engineers and designers wanted a route that could better accommodate these different modes.

Option Lands – Rail ROW looking south from W 2nd Ave

But with the proposed alternatives, the devil (as always) will be in the (design) details. The current proposal would see a (separated) cycling facility and a walking route to False Creek via Pine Street and West 1st Avenue, and potential for a walking route to False Creek and Granville Island under the Fir Street off-ramp. In the future, the proposed Arbutus line streetcar is also intended to link up with a wider streetcar network.

Given that these alternative north connection streets are also currently open to automobiles, and traverse light industrial and commercially-zoned areas, it will be particularly important to ensure a design that properly links the Arbutus Greenway experience to the waterfront (and back again). We would advocate for a design that has a strong pedestrian-primary focus, consistently separated “all ages and abilities” bike routing, clear routing for the future streetcar – and, yes, lots of greenery for the greenway.

Proposed Pine Street route for northern pedestrian connection. (At W 3rd, looking north). Source: Google Streetview.

Given the mix of existing activities and uses that surround the northern extension, the proposed routes each have their own challenges. In order to ensure the best possible array of design options are produced, we would recommend that the City hold off on its plans to de-list the aforementioned Arbutus lands from the Arbutus Corridor Official Development Plan until the design for the northern connection is complete. In the same vein, we think it would be similarly prudent to avoid the rezoning or sale of these lands until this important northern linkage is rolled out.

In the end, the option lands may be a legitimate way to finance – through rezoning and sale – some of the critical public space improvements that are coming with the Greenway. If a better, more inclusive and people-friendly route can be delivered on these adjacent streets, per the Arbutus Design Vision, then we think that’s an acceptable alternative. We know this is something that is a stated priority of the City. But in the meantime, until the northern connection(s) are in place, there’s no harm in keeping these lands on the table in case they are needed.

Cover image: “Option Lands” looking north along the rail right-of-way from W 4th Avenue. Source: Google Streetview

In January, a Council motion was introduced by Councillors Elizabeth Ball and Melissa DeGenova which called for focussed attention on the City’s pedestrian curb ramp program. This is the portion of the City’s budget that funds curb cuts and related improvements for older or sub-standard sidewalks and intersections. The motion, in particular, calls on staff to figure out ways to fund and complete needed improvements to the “approximately 6,000 locations throughout the City where they are still required.”

On one hand, it’s a commendable request, because making our walking infrastructure safer and more accessible for all residents is key to supporting a range of the City’s goals around health, sustainability and transportation.

Of course, the motion also implies some decisions around funding priorities – because 6,000 intersections (assuming they are of equal necessity) will cost a fair bit. So this means some significant funding will be required (in this case the motion points to the City’s 2019 capital budget… along – it is suggested – with “additional funding that could be leveraged from the Federal and Provincial governments, non-profit foundations, and corporate and community partners.”)

Setting the question of dollars aside, we feel the motion, with its call for a greater focus on pedestrian infrastructure, has merit. We also feel that it could be strengthened by being broader in its application. Yes, curb cuts are needed… but there’s actually an array of other pedestrian-focused improvements that are also equally important – so let’s not focus on just one. In fact, we think the motion could be expanded so that it directs staff to develop a Pedestrian Strategy similar to the sort that has guided civic policy and infrastructure investment in a number of cities.

We wrote a letter to Council on the matter back in January. The motion is being considered this coming February 21. Here’s an excerpt of what we said.

… Vancouver is overdue for the sort of comprehensive Pedestrian Strategy and investment plan that has successfully guided similar important investments in the cycling network. Currently, the City has a Pedestrian Safety Study that has focused on some critical hotspots in pedestrian areas; however, more is needed.

To that end, this motion suggests the potential identification of the nature and costs associated with one type of important pedestrian improvement (namely, curb cuts). This could also be an important way to advance city-wide discussion, policy framing, and investment in an array of pedestrian infrastructure improvements, including:

• Installation of missing sidewalks
• Key areas for curb bulges and raised crosswalks
• Sidewalk repair/edge grinding
• Clearer separation of shared pedestrian and bike paths
• Pedestrian safety improvements
• Other key types of pedestrian infrastructure (including seating, water fountains, etc.)

These and other pedestrian-focused considerations could then be rolled into the sort of Pedestrian or Walking Strategy that you find in cities such as Copenhagen, Berlin, Bristol, Calgary and Toronto. In each of these examples, a higher-level Transportation Policy has resulted in a more detailed policy document and action plan that aims to promote the overall walkability of the city. We feel that the City is part way there with Transportation 2040, and that its now time to take things to this next level.

We therefore offer our support for the recommendations of the motion that seek to daylight the overall situation and costs associated with curb cuts; however, we feel the motion should be broadened to encourage a more comprehensive identification of issues and opportunities for the pedestrian environment.

UPDATE: On February 21, 2018, Council deliberated on this motion. It passed unanimously, with no amendments. So, for the moment, no Pedestrian or Walking strategy. Whole the motion is a step ahead, we will continue to advocate for a more comprehensive approach that responds to the full array of pedestrian issues that require attention.

The intent is to reallocate a portion of one of the bridge’s southbound travel lanes (and south side off ramp) to create a southbound bike lane. This would create the opportunity for a separated bike lane and sidewalk on the west side of the bridge, while the east side would stay as it is. The approach would create improved separation between cyclists from pedestrians, enhancing overall safety. City staff suggest that the change would have a “minimal impact on motor vehicle capacity.”

Improvements to various connections at the north and south ends of the bridges are also discussed in the report (and in some cases already underway). To this end, we suggest that upgrades to existing bike lanes should also be considered as part of this initiative. In particular, the recently installed Smithe Street lane, with its partial separation of bikes and cars, and its blended bike/right turn lanes, can feel especially unsafe.

:: Read the City of Vancouver report – Cambie Bridge Interim Active Transportation Improvements

Photo by Gary Howe, Flickr, MyWheelsareTurning.

The Dunbar Chronicles is a great new walking tour quite unlike others… Brief anecdotes were collected from residents of the neighbourhood, and these anecdotes were then re-imagined into short fictional stories by local writers. The stories are located in public places (and a few other places) throughout the community as a literary walking tour.

The tour starts at the Dunbar Community Centre (4747 Dunbar St), where one can find maps of the tour. Maps are also available at the library a block away, or can be downloaded from the website (below). If walkers are really keen, it might take about 1.5 hours in total to visit all of the locations, but it works just as well by visiting just a few locations if folks don’t have time to complete the entire circuit. Also, the tour starts and finishes in Dunbar village where coffee, beer and food are available to start or end one’s trip! A surprising number of small patios await…

The Dunbar Chronicles is also part of the Salmonberry Days festival that occurs throughout the month of May.

There’s no tour leader, no start time, it’s a self-guided walk that can be taken anytime between now and the end of the month. However, some of the artists and writers will be on hand on a few dates to discuss the project – for more details go to the project website: https://workingholidayproject.wordpress.com/portfolio/the-dunbar-chronicles/.

The Dunbar Chronicles is part of the Working Holiday Project – a partnership of 3 community artists (Elisa Yon, Leah Weinstein and Jaspal Marwah) who are sharing a year-long arts residency at the Dunbar Community Centre.

As you’ve probably heard, a sizeable component of the discussion is devoted to several new bike lanes that are proposed for the City, including a number in the downtown core.

This is an important step forward for biking in Vancouver, offering further legitimacy and support to cycling as a mode of transportation. However, it also, indirectly, raises some interesting questions about the City’s attention to pedestrian issues and pedestrian infrastructure.

But before we get to that, let’s start by noting some of the many generally favourable articles and posts written about the bike lanes, including CBC and Metro and Vancity Buzz, among others. It’s perhaps equally telling to make note of the articles that aren’t being written. Whereas previous bike lane discussions (Burrard, Hornby, Dunsmuir) have generated all sorts of froth, it’s good to note that the backlash against bike lanes appears to have quieted. Maybe not everywhere, of course, but in a lot of corners. Even former opponents, like the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, have now come out in support. Cycling infrastructure is rolling forward indeed.

So, we’ll happily go on record noting our support as well. And we will be writing to Council to say as much. For us the new bike lanes do a number of things:

• Increase the accessibility of safe, health-promoting, all-ages, cycling infrastructure for residents and visitors.

• Enable more room for growth. As the numbers show, we continue to see an upward trend in the use of our bike lanes – and more and better infrastructure will propel further increases. Biking is becoming more of a norm for more people.

• Strengthen the network. The focus on improving the connections between already existing routes is key. Fewer ‘gaps’ means better overall connectivity, better access to key destinations, and a resulting increased efficiency for cycling as a mode of transportation.

• Support more spot improvements to elements of cycling infrastructure that need a ‘quick fix.’ (One suggestion: we’d love to see a transparent and trackable means for the public to identify needed improvements).

• Present a well-conceived choice of routes. The choice of future routes – both downtown and city-wide – reflects good planning around design and location.

But, let’s bike-park the cycling question for the moment.

We also think this is the right opportunity to raise a note of concern about the “Five Year Update”. And it’s not a small note. It’s a fundamental one.

Active transportation is supposed to be about cyclists and pedestrians. With that in mind, the staff report being considered on Thursday, should outline a five year plan for both of these modes of transport – and everything else self-propelled and ‘active,’ including wheelchairs, skateboards, push scooters and more.

Its revealing, then, that the aforementioned report uses the word “pedestrian” only twice in its 16 pages. “Walk” or “walking” fares a little better, showing up 17 times in total. Compare “cycling” (59 uses) and “bike” (66 uses) and you get a sense of the report’s priorities.

There’s more. The word “sidewalk” appears eight times, and if you look at how this term is used, the sense of priorities crystallize a little further. Almost inevitably the references talk about the benefits of bike lanes as a way of improving walkability – because they will, in theory, take bikes (and now skateboards) off of the sidewalk. Now, this is good move, to be sure – but there is a lot more that needs to be done to improve pedestrian infrastructure than just the subtraction of cyclists from city sidewalks.

With very few exceptions, everyone uses pedestrian infrastructure – including cyclists, transit users and car drivers – and we think the present report ought to go further and spell out a more tangible action plan for the most essential, most universal, mode of transportation. There’s much that a ‘5 year Action Plan’ might conceivably say about pedestrians; this present report misses an important opportunity.

Which brings us to a more fundamental discussion taking place at Council on today: on the subject of the 2016 Budget. It’s at this meeting that Council will deliberate over the allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars in capital and operating funding, covering every aspect of municipal operations.

Despite the fundamental – even existential – nature of pedestrian mobility, and notwithstanding the fact that pedestrians are prioritized in the City’s Transportation 2040 plan, the actual municipal investment in qualitative and quantitative improvements to pedestrian infrastructure has flat-lined in recent years. Last year, the City’s budget for sidewalk rehabilitation was a paltry $1million. This year, the figure is the same… and that’s a million that is meant to fund repairs to a civic asset that is 2,100 kilometres in length.

Of course, there are other line items that support walkability. The 2016 budget proposes $875,000 will go to new pedestrian and cycling signals. An additional $325,000 is allocated for new curb ramps. But at several thousand a pop for either of these types of infrastucture, the budgeted funds will not last long. The curb ramp budget, for example, will cover approximately 60 of the 6000 ramps that are estimated to be needed across the city.

The same story holds for the $275,000 in new sidewalk construction funds. The amount sounds like a lot at first blush, but it actually only means between 3-5 kilometres of new sidewalk will be built.

This is problematic enough for safety reasons. Our pedestrian infrastructure may not need to be perfect (a few cracks, a bit of warping from tree roots and you get the addition of character), but it could certainly stand to see more investment. Character aside, the city does have a lot of pedestrian spaces that are in need of real improvement. The annual budgets have been granting very limited means to meet this need.

Finally, there’s yet another angle to consider: the opportunity – the real possibility – to think of our sidewalks as critically important public spaces, not just corridors for people movement. Key sidewalks, especially on our extraordinary high streets ought to be places for gathering. They ought to be beautiful. They should be a key part of making our civic spaces sparkle.

The City’s Transportation 2040 Plan speaks eloquently about the need to make walking “delightful.” That’s a wonderful word for policy… and we should have sidewalks every bit as worthy of that aspiration.

Alas, if we’re after sidewalk widening and the more generous ‘complete street‘ designs that many city’s are experimenting with, the opportunities presented in both policy and budget are likely be constrained, and driven largely by redevelopment opportunities than a more proactive, city-led approach. Similarly, if we want something more than minimalist concrete, a $1 million “rehabilitation budget” means we can kiss any hope of pavers, cobblestone and decent design treatment goodbye. There are exceptions, of course, but the dollars-and-cents reality of the sidewalk budget makes this an impossibility on any decent scale.

It doesn’t have to be that way, of course. We think it’s time to see Active Transportation priorities (and the associated capital allocations that sustain them) focus more meaningfully on the pedestrian realm. Not at the expense of cycling infrastructure, but as a proper compliment to it.

In the past several years, Council has turned the wheel forward with some incredible investments cycling infrastructure and policy. It’s now time to make similar strides with the same rigorous and game-changing investment in our pedestrian realm.

More information 

:: City of Vancouver: Active Transportation Update and Pilot for Skateboarding in Protected Bike Lanes
:: City of Vancouver: 2016 Budget and Five Year Financial Plan

Taking place May 1-2, the theme for the 2015 QUAD Conference is “Investing in our Transportation Evolution“. Many trends are reshaping the transportation industry‘s landscape, such as social media, autonomous vehicles, and the shift towards active transportation. Discover the innovative ways that transportation professionals are leading this evolution, and how the public and private sectors are investing in this change.

Browse the schedule, register, and get involved.

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to walk through your favourite novel? Close to 40 folks showed up during our launch in early May to find out! And guess what… the stories are still up this week in case you missed them (or stayed out of the rain).

Check out the choose your own adventure walking tour that CBC and other media’s been talking about lately.

Here’s all you need to check out the (self-guided) walking tour:

Go to the bulletin board on east 24th, between Main st & Ontario st and find the first Active Fiction chapter there. You’ll find all the instructions on where to find the rest of the story there as well. Then it’s up to you to wander the neighborhood and find the next chapters hidden in the area (but not hidden too secretly).

What is it?

We’re testing out a new kind of walking / art / public adventure: the Active Fiction Project. We’ll be launching a bigger version of this walking experience in the summer. Come and get a sneak peek & see what it’s all about.

Take this 5 second quiz to see if you should attend:

• You’re on the VPSN website right now
• You’ve been known to enjoy reading a book
• You like walking in neighbourhoods
• You like finding hidden things
• You don’t want to spend a lot of time

Any yes answers? Then head over to east 24th ave and get walking!

Visit the Project Website and share your experiences of the walk (#activefic is on twitter! facebook! flickr!)

Questions? Get in touch info@activefictionproject.com