Closure turns thoroughfare into community oasis
Construction has closed normally busy East 1st Avenue for much of the summer, and ‘everyone’s loving it’
It’s just before 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, and a trio of boys are riding circles in the middle of one of Vancouver’s busiest arterial roads.
Fox, 7, points his scooter toward the south curb on East 1st Avenue, not far from Semlin Drive, rolls up a plywood ramp onto the sidewalk, spins around and rides back across the road. His brothers Banksy, 5, and Baz, 3, follow suit on bikes.
A scene like this on an avenue that could be mistaken for a highway would have been unimaginable just a few months ago. But a summer of construction closures on East 1st Avenue due to gas-line upgrades have turned the route into something of a temporary community space.
Jeff Mosuk, who stood in the middle of East 1st Avenue watching his boys scoot around, said his family normally does not go near the route “because it’s way too dangerous for kids.” But the construction has changed that.
“We come out here every day after supper, and last night there was like 50 people on the street. It was like a walking street. It was fantastic,” Mosuk said.
He said residents that front the busy route have started to use their front yards for what seemed like the first time, and bikers, skateboarders and pedestrians have taken back the street.
Katy Howden, standing in the front yard of her sister’s home on a side street not far from where the Mosuk brothers were riding, said her nephew was now playing with toys on the front steps of the house.
“It’s been amazing. It’s so quiet and everyone’s loving it. It would be so nice for it to be always closed,” Howden said. She said her sister and family were now out on East 1st Avenue “all the time,” and her nephew’s bike skills had dramatically improved because he had so much room to ride.
Howden said a driver had once ripped down East 1st Avenue, taken a corner too wide and crashed through her sister’s front yard, coming to a stop in a sandbox that Howden’s nephew liked to play in.
Nothing like that has happened since the traffic shifted off East 1st Avenue, and Howden’s nephew is safe to play in the front yard again, or even join other neighbourhood kids on the nearby four lane arterial. Several blocks west, someone had painted an “East Van” cross — an oftused symbol of community pride — in an intersection.
Recently, some neighbours set up a dining table and chairs at the same spot to share a bite to eat, said Clancy Dennehy.
“It’s just neighbourly people sitting on what would normally be a highway. They’re sitting there drinking wine into the hot summer night. It’s a happy thing. It’s a very happy thing,” Dennehy said.
“It’s kind of like how a snowstorm brings people together.”
East 1st Avenue is slated to remain fully closed between Clark Dr. and Nanaimo St. until Aug. 31, according to the City of Vancouver’s website.
For Mosuk and others who live near him, one often stated negative effect of the closure has been an increase of traffic on side streets in the area.
But Mosuk said police had “been fantastic,” by patrolling the neighbourhood constantly for traffic violations.