New West local looks for changes to stretch of Columbia

Most days, Victoria Hill resident Phil Kehres will walk to and from work. Overall, a walk along the Central Valley Greenway (CVG) is fine, but he says there’s always one section he dreads.

“There’s this stretch in particular here near Cumberland, [walking towards Debeck Street] where the sidewalk gets pretty narrow,” he explains. “There’s shrubs and trees hanging, and trucks are whizzing at you, coming around the corner from Front Street going 60 kilometres per hour.”

Add some bad weather, and Kehres says it takes the walk to the TransLink offices at Sapperton to a whole new level. “When you add in some rain, or some tricky weather of some kind, there’s always that kind of heart in your throat.”

The scariest thing? Walking with kids. Kehres has two of them, and both are under five.

“Sometimes we want to go to Sapperton Station to go to Lougheed Mall. I’m just so terrified every second of that walk on that stretch, that someone is going to jump the curb and hit my kids.” Kehres says his older son, who is three, is more than capable of walking on his own. “I’ll only take the one [child] in the stroller because I can control it. I’m just so worried that my other boy is going to veer into the street.”

During our interview, a woman who lives steps away from the path let us know she refuses to take her stroller down there. The woman, who was carrying a baby, said she’d often have nightmares about getting hit by a vehicle.

“I don’t know what’s going on there. I feel unsafe. It’s little, it’s narrow. And so, I have a stroller. I will go all the way up [the hill and around that block of Columbia] because I don’t want to get hit by a car.”

Kehres says he’s reached out to the city, but he’s been told that it’s an area with varying degrees of responsibility. “I’m not asking for a radical solution, but it does get a bit frustrating to hear that the city can’t do anything about it.”

Whose Greenway is it anyway?

While the stretch along Columbia Street is a designated provincial truck route, a statement from BC’s Ministry of Transportation says the section is not its responsibility.

“It should be the City of New Westminster who has responsibility over that section of road.”

A spokesperson for TransLink says that the stretch is part of the Major Road Network, (MRN) which it co-manages with the City of New Westminster. "The City of New Westminster owns the road, but TransLink is responsible for providing the Operations and Maintenance of the road, which gives us some authority over the changes on the roadway," they say.

As for the City of New Westminster, it's confirmed the stretch is on the list of spaces to fix. In a statement, acting manager of transportation Mike Anderson says it understands the frustration of residents who use the path. It also notes time and money are key.

“[It] is a complex and costly undertaking due to property constraints and the fact that East Columbia Street and Brunette Avenue are part of the regional MRN, the truck route network, and are important access routes to Royal Columbian Hospital.”

There is money in the city’s current capital plan to start the design process for the area, and the city says it’s hoping to begin that either later this year, or in 2023.

For Kehres, he simply wants safety. “Long-term, the solution is pretty complicated, I would imagine, but short-term, I’d like to see something like an aluminum or steel fence along the sidewalk, a bit of a wider sidewalk,” Kehres says. “Just some grooming of the trees and shrubs along that area.”

As for those who might feel this is a small bump in the road, Kehres is asking naysayers to take a walk along the space.

“Come out here. Come out here and look for yourself, experience it for yourself. Hopefully you understand that it’s not a good scenario.”