ROAD EXPANSION ON BEACH WILL NOT
BENEFIT WEST ENDERS

by Carol Reardon

On May 8, ABC Councillors voted in favour of widening and relocating Beach Avenue west of Denman Street to make it a two-way street suitable for tour buses and other motor vehicles to enter and exit Stanley Park.

Last summer, ABC tried to get rid of the Beach bike lane to reopen two-way traffic on Beach. Now, ABC is adopting an even more ambitious road expansion project that will significantly widen and relocate Beach west of Denman. The changes would reintroduce two-way traffic; introduce curbside parking on the north side of the street; eliminate the sidewalk and old bike path on the south side of the street; move the bike lane from the road to where the sidewalk is, and remove green space from English Bay to create a pedestrian "pathway" instead of a curbside sidewalk. The project will cost $16 million, $8.4 million of which will be drawn from the West End Amenity Contribution fund - monies levied from developers and earmarked in the city's capital budget for the benefit of the West End community.

It appears the city tried to sneak this project past us by including it in the "Imagine West End Waterfront Vision," a 30-year action plan intended to protect the West End waterfront from the combined threats of a one metre rise in sea level, combined with increased population density. ABC councillors voted down the ambitious plan as a whole, but amended it to extract, and then approve, the road expansion portion of the project on its own. How did a road expansion project, from a plan to upgrade our infrastructure to account for rising sea levels, become the city's top priority? Was it always the intention to ditch the overall plan and proceed with just the road expansion? What benefits will West End residents receive from this change?

TRAFFIC CONGESTION

West End residents will not benefit from this road project, which quite frankly, appears to have been parachuted into the Imagine West End Waterfront Vision to provide cover for widening and reopening Beach to two-way traffic. West End bus routes #5 and #6 are already the slowest routes in the transit network because of traffic congestion. This will make the situation worse. Additional traffic congestion at Beach and Denman Street will lead frustrated commuters and visitors to try to find alternative routes through the West End, something Planning and Engineering Services have been working to prevent in the West End for decades. Adding curbside parking to a neighbourhood where most people walk, bus or cycle to the waterfront is not a West End amenity, it’s a city revenue source.

MOVING THE BIKE LANE NOT AN AMENITY

The existing bike lane on Beach is a public amenity enjoyed by locals and visitors alike. There is nothing wrong with the existing bike lane. It does not require replacement (unlike the Aquatic Centre). Moving the existing bike lane to where the sidewalk and pedestrian pathway are now does not offer the West End a new amenity. The plan proposes relocating the bike lane and the pedestrian sidewalk and pathway to allow for the widening of the road and return to two-way traffic.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Reopening Beach Avenue to two-way traffic will increase danger for pedestrians. The existing bike lane on the road, plus a lane of one-way traffic, significantly calms traffic in this area. Replacing this with two lanes of traffic, plus parking, will bring more traffic to the area and it will be moving much faster. The proposal to eliminate a functioning sidewalk on the south side of the street will be unsafe and detrimental to the needs of mobility challenged residents and visitors.

AIR POLLUTION / CLIMATE CHANGE

The Imagine West End Waterfront Vision, taken as a whole, was intended to mitigate the effects of climate change. The Beach Avenue road expansion project will only accelerate it. The reintroduction of two-way traffic on Beach Ave also runs contrary to the Vancouver Park Board's current search for ways to reduce the volume of vehicle traffic in Stanley Park.

FUTURE TRANSIT ROUTE INTO THE PARK?

Engineering Services has suggested that we need to widen Beach and make it two-way in case Translink introduces a permanent bus route through Stanley Park in the future. There is currently no Translink plan to introduce a two-way public bus route through Stanley Park entering and exiting on Beach. Even if it is considered in the future, there is nothing to say that it will be two-way, year-round, or include Beach Avenue. It makes no sense to expend public monies to tear out and move the most highly used bike lane in Vancouver and eliminate a pedestrian sidewalk based on a hypothetical project that may never happen. The time to consider reopening Beach is when Translink comes forward with a fully-funded Stanley Park bus route that is both two-way and located on Beach Avenue.

INAPPROPRIATE USE OF FUNDS

The City should not be siphoning funds out of the West End Amenity Contributions fund to help pay for a road expansion project that will primarily benefit tour buses and traffic from outside the West End. This money should be spent on improvements for the benefit of the West End community, like a new Aquatic Centre or new West End Community Centre.

The project straddles the jurisdictions of the Vancouver Park Board and Vancouver City Council. On April 22, the park board declined to proceed with the aspects of the project within its jurisdiction. The funding for Engineering’s share of the project will not be finalized until July. This is not over yet. We can still have an impact if we let city council know we do not approve of this project.

Carol Reardon is is a long-time West End resident with a Masters Degree
in City Planning from MIT and a lengthy career in Administrative Law.