Monday night’s council meeting had everyone in attendance—though Coun. Tasha Henderson appeared remotely.

An update on the Pattullo Bridge

Aside from the upcoming closure that’s set to happen this Easter long weekend, we’re hearing from Transportation Investment Corporation (TI Corp)—the Crown corporation that’s taking the lead on building the new crossing—about some of the other closures that are slated to come to the city before the project’s completion, which, based on comments during the presentation, is slated for some time in 2024.

For those not in the know: the Pattullo Bridge opened in 1937, and it doesn’t meet modern design standards—hence its replacement. It will be built to be able to operate six lanes of traffic—three in either direction—but will open with four lanes of vehicle traffic.

Wendy Itagawa, the executive director of the Pattullo Bridge replacement, noted during the presentation that one of these closures could include a stretch of Front Street, that could last for up to six months. Other closures include:

• Construction along Columbia Street, starting sometime this month

• Royal Avenue deck replacement, sometime later this month

• Intersection improvements at McBride and E. Columbia, which will take place over the spring and summer

• Later in the summer, as well as into the fall, Front Street closures

More details will be shared as the project gets closer to those closure dates. Itagawa recommended signing up for the Pattullo Bridge newsletter to get the latest updates regarding the project.

Itagawa noted there were “lessons learned” from work on other crossings, like the Port Mann Bridge, and said there would not be cables that hang over roads, thereby minimizing the risk of so-called ice bombs. The new crossing will also have its own snow and ice clearing system.

Indigenous groups have also been consulted, and the team is looking at the possibility of an Indigenous name for the new crossing.

Bikes and businesses

This was one of two items pulled from Monday evening’s consent agenda: this motion looked at possible mitigation for businesses that previously said they were struggling amid the installation of bike lanes in Uptown New Westminster.

In a report written by city staff, one of the suggestions includes installing flexible posts along the concrete buffers that are adjacent to the bike lanes. This idea is tied to concerns around the visibility of those buffers.

“The time and cost … to implement this adaptable measure will be fairly minimal as there are sufficient flexible posts available in storage, noting these were previously used along Agnes Greenway.”

The cost is set to be approximately $5,000.

In response to the feedback regarding traffic delays, staff believe that with time, road users will become used to the change. Staff have also asked that monitoring of on-street parking along Sixth Street continue, so that they can figure out whether parking fees should be “adjusted to optimize parking turnover.”

Staff from New West outlined having conversations with other North American municipalities, including Burnaby, the City of North Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Toronto, as well as with Portland’s Bureau of Transportation.

Some of the overarching themes the staff from our city noticed in the feedback included recommendations to closely monitor and document engagement activities, have feedback sessions that catered to New West businesses only, and to also look at conducting public intercept surveys.

The research also addressed the choice of wording used to refer to the project.

“For the NWSS Cycling Connector specifically, there seems to be confusion about whether or not the bike lane itself is temporary. Other municipalities have experienced similar problems and opted to utilize alternative language besides “temporary” or “interim” in order to reduce the potential for confusion over the permanence of the cycling facilities,” the report reads, adding that the term “adaptable” might have been a better one to use instead of “interim.”

Coun. Daniel Fontaine mentioned receiving anecdotal feedback from people in the area who have observed certain drivers blocking these spaces as they pick up and drop off food; he says they’ve typically been spotted in the Wendy’s area.

Coun. Nadine Nakagawa said she’d recently tried—and liked—taking her bike through the lane, but noted there was a lack of bike parking near businesses to use. Her comments come nearly four months after another resident, Jens Vent-Schmidt, made the same observation.

Council voted to receive the report, which also included giving the go-ahead to have city staff implement some of the aforementioned suggestions and changes.

Other notes from the council meeting

Car in the yard. New West resident Irina Almasan, who lives along 10th Street, shared video of a car that ended up in her yard in January. While no one was hurt, she said it could have been much worse. Afterwards, it was revealed that staff had been in contact with the delegation.

Queen’s Park. Resident Carmen Dunn urged council to take a second look at the recently discussed plans for Queen’s Park, saying she’d personally prefer to see a place for her children to tire themselves out with physical play structures versus a garden space. Dunn said she considers the garden space a “nice-to-have.”

Parks and recreation registration. Coun. Henderson said it was important to look at city program registration opportunities with an equitable lens: someone who is working at 8am, when these registrations open, might not have the opportunity to focus on getting themselves and/or their children into a program.

Preserving, protecting, and enhancing the Samson V Museum for future generations. For the uninitiated, the Samson V has seen quite a bit of damage thanks to pigeon poop: the vessel’s roof is made from canvas, which is currently shrink wrapped.

The motion, put forward by Fontaine, asked staff to report back on costs, possible funding sources, and operational impacts of putting the Samson V in dry dock for repairing and restoring. Part of the motion also asked that staff reach out to the Fraser River Discovery Centre and “other stakeholders” to see how the waterfront can be used if the Samson V ended up in repairs.

Fontaine also spoke about taking cues from staff and council’s previous visit to the City of North Vancouver, to see if there were other ways to optimize our local waters.

The motion was defeated 5-2 with only Couns. Paul Minhas and Fontaine supporting it.

Consultation and the Growing Communities Fund. (GCF) This is the $15M that was given to New West by the BC government; you can read about how New West ended up with its share here.

Minhas’s motion included an ask for a special open meeting at City Hall to get feedback from the community, as well as having staff develop an online survey.

Nakagawa said she appreciated the spirit of the motion but noted the engagement process needed to go beyond the question of what to do with the $15 million. In a similar train of thought, Henderson said the $15 million was a drop in the bucket relative to the multi-year version of the capital budget, which comes in at $400 million. (The 2023 capital budget is currently at $173.2 million.)

Minhas’ original motion was put off to the side, while Nakagawa proposed a motion that would see community engagement staff, early in the 2024 budget process, obtain feedback from a representative sample of New Westminster’s residents. Nakagawa noted that she’d especially like to see engagement from New West renters.

Fontaine offered an amendment to that motion: “be it further resolved no decision be made regarding the GCF until a report back to council on the engagement process in the motion above.”

Fontaine’s amendment passed, and Nakagawa’s offering also passed.

Train whistle cessation update

These updates come after city staff said in December they’d be providing them. Fontaine asked to have this be discussed at a future meeting, but because it was in Monday night’s agenda—and it’s already public—I’ve decided to go ahead and write about it.

The update from city staff was categorized into three sections: short-term opportunities, mid-term opportunities, and long-term opportunities, referring to the amount of time it could take to achieve whistle cessation.

There’s just one area where whistle cessation could happen by end of 2023: at Furness and Duncan streets in Queensborough.

Those in the mid-term opportunities category, for a variety of reasons, include:

• The 20th Street crossing (West End)

• The 4th Avenue crossing (West End)

• Spruce Street (Sapperton)

• Cumberland Street (Sapperton)

For Spruce and Cumberland streets, the implementation of whistle cessation is slated to be done by 2025.

In the long-term opportunities category:

• Furness Street at Ewen Avenue (Queensborough)

• Mercer Street at Ewen Avenue (Queensborough)

• Ewen Avenue at Stanley Street (Queensborough)

• Salter Street at Derwent Way (Queensborough)

• Braid Street at Brunette Avenue (Sapperton)

• Braid Street at Vulcan Street (Sapperton)

City staff noted in their report that these particular crossings were “highly complex, resource intensive … projects that will require further examination to better understand the technical implications, resource and capital expenditure impacts, as well as implementation time frames.”

The next city council meeting is scheduled to take place on April 24.