Vancouver city council votes to close one block of Robson Street
Vision Vancouver councillors voted Wednesday to permanently close a block of Robson Street to cars and buses, despite impassioned protests from seniors and an attempt by opposition party members to send the idea back to staff.
The 800-block Robson — between Hornby and Howe — is typically closed to traffic in summer months to create a public plaza connecting both sides of Robson Square. During those months, one of the few bus routes to and from the West End is rerouted by several blocks, diverting passengers — many of them seniors — away from the downtown core.
Councillors made the plaza permanent after a heated debate that spurred one Vision councillor, Tim Stevenson, to storm out of the room. In a separate vote, staff were directed to design the plaza, work with seniors and transit users to determine a permanent bus route, and report back in December.
Robson marks the third permanent road closure by the city since Vision Vancouver took office in 2008. It follows the closure of Terry Fox Way, near B.C. Place Stadium, and another road in the East Fraser Lands, according to the city.
Before the vote, Scott Ricker, a member of the West End Seniors Planning Table, told councillors the city’s plan was “a disservice to residents of the West End who have mobility issues.”
“People that have disabilities with their feet or they have mobility issues are really going to pay a price for this,” he said.
Ricker said, it’s not that his group disapproves of the idea of a square, they just want a better transit solution first.
Lon LaClaire, the acting director of transportation for the City of Vancouver, told councillors that welldesigned plazas are “people magnets.” He pointed to places like Toronto’s Dundas Square and London’s Trafalgar Square as examples of what the city is trying to achieve.
Charles Gauthier, the CEO of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, said feedback he had received during extensive consultations was positive.
“People said we need to have a plaza in the heart of the city where we can gather for festivals and events, and yes, even protests,” he said.
When architect Arthur Erickson designed the 121,000-square-metre Robson Square complex in the 1970s, he planned for the entire area to be closed to traffic. Shortly after it opened, buses were allowed and later, passenger vehicles.
I’m writing this in advance of Vancouver council’s vote on whether to permanently close the 800-block Robson Street because I already know how it will go. They closed the street, am I right? Anyone surprised by the decision clearly hasn’t been paying attention to how things are slammed through — sorry, I mean, “done” — at Vancouver City Hall with what passes for leadership under Mayor Gregor Robertson and his contemptible Visionaries.
The Robson closure followed the same noxious strategy Vision always employs when shoving its impractical, ideology-based schemes onto residents against their wishes while limiting as much as possible democratic input. It’s what happens when you elect activists more interested in advancing their ideology instead of practical politicians who will seek to find common ground on issues and compromises so that all citizens feel part of their community and listened to.
Here’s how the Robson Street closure went down. A week before the vote, out of the blue, a one-sided “staff” report was issued calling for the closure, giving citizens very little time to react. Then Wednesday, at 9:30 a.m. on a workday, when most of us working stiffs were conveniently unavailable, the motion was passed.
Like I said, it was slammed through because Vision doesn’t really want to hear from residents. As usual, the entire exercise was done in ways to minimize debate and criticism of Vision policies.
The staff report says that just 2,100 people were surveyed about the closure in a city of more than 600,000 and claimed, as support for the plan, that a poll taken in the 800-block Robson during a summer closure in 2011 supported closing it. That’s a bit like going to the 420 pro-pot rally and finding that most people support marijuana.
City hall doesn’t really want to know how motorists, delivery drivers, bus operators, West End residents, the disabled, the elderly or transit users feel about the closure, which further degrades the already ruined road system downtown. Vision doesn’t care much about them or how they will be affected by the closure, which is partly being done to provide room for protests, if you can believe it.
Count me among Vancouverites who no longer believe that “staff” reports from Vancouver City Hall are professional documents.
Through the hiring of green-agenda fellow travellers, Vision has politicized the bureaucracy, from the city manager on down. (Sadhu Johnson didn’t get the job recently because he’s terribly qualified — he has a degree in environmental studies and politics from Oberlin College, a private liberal arts institution in Ohio, not in urban planning, public administration or something related to the job.) He got it because he’s a green zealot who travels in the same, mostly American, circles as the mayor, hell bent on destroying the resource economy and trying to force people out of their cars. (If you can believe it, Vancouver’s official policy makes pedestrians the No. 1 priority for street use, then cyclists, then transit and then, finally cars — the reverse order of who actually uses them.)
Johnson and many other Vancouver bureaucrats aren’t serving the citizens who pay their salaries, they are serving Vision and its agenda. That’s why we get one-sided reports that make no effort to compromise.
Take the Robson closure. That area already has tons of space for pedestrians. It’s been functioning well as a plaza for decades. The north side of the art gallery could be transformed into a plaza without closing yet another road, forcing the rerouting of a major bus route and inconveniencing many Vancouverites. And that doesn’t even recognize that for most of the year no one will sit in the space anyway, due to the rain.
In the staff report, other options are not pointed out, as would have been done in Vancouver staff reports in the past. Minor points are played up (like what architect Arthur Erickson thought the city needed 40 years ago) and negative issues are either not discussed or played down, like problems for TransLink, traffic flow and impacts on nearby merchants.
A few days before the last election, when it looked like he could lose, Robertson offered a vague public apology, admitting that his party’s governance style in pushing its aggressive green agenda had alienated many residents.
“I thought it was important for me to apologize when I have overstepped and pushed too far and ensure that people realize I am going to adjust,” Robertson said at the time by way of explanation.
Instead, he’s doubled down on the secretive, bullying style of government for which Vision is so notorious. With a four-year mandate, don’t hold you breath that the mayor and his party are going to change how they treat citizens.