Stanley Park traffic tweak proposal draws dissent
Restaurant owner fears gridlock if single-lane idea proceeds
The possibility of further changes to Stanley Park to reduce vehicle traffic is generating strong opposition from supporters of traditional car access to the park.
One of the agenda items for Vancouver Park Board commissioners next Monday is a motion to “explore the longterm feasibility of reducing motor vehicle traffic” and for staff to explore restricting cars to a single lane on Park Drive, as well as look at green transportation options to help people with mobility issues.
Park board commissioner John Irwin said taking steps to battle climate change is at the top of the reasons why he has proposed the motion along with fellow commissioner Stuart Mackinnon.
“If we don’t start changing our behaviour now, we’ll never change,” he said Wednesday.
“We should make a move to do two things: limit automobile access, and cover off the issues of people with mobility challenges to make sure people can still access the park.”
Irwin said he isn’t trying to ban cars from the park. The motion calls on park board staff to see what can be done, including allocating one lane for bikes and one lane for cars. Irwin doesn’t own a car. He said he gets around by public transit and bicycle.
“There have been voices on both sides: people saying it’s going to be bad for seniors and bad for access to the park,” he said. “I think (there is) a slightly larger number of people, who say, ‘I really love this ability to ride around the park on the road.’ ”
On April 8, the park board temporarily banned bicycles on the seawall and motor vehicles on Park Drive to allow for social distancing. A bike count between April 9 and May 24 saw a daily average of 5,300, compared to 3,000 during the same period last year.
The Capilano Group, which operates both the Stanley Park Pavilion and the Prospect Point Trading Post, said it has spent more than $5 million upgrading the two restaurants.
Since the Pavilion and Trading Post pay rent based on gross revenues, reducing the number of vehicles would translate into fewer people, less money spent in the restaurants, and reduced revenue for the park board, said Stacy Chala, communications manager for the Capilano Group.
“This idea has not been discussed at any time with the park stakeholders, who have multi-year leases and have invested millions of dollars upgrading facilities to improve the Stanley Park experience,” Chala said in an email. “(Our) investment decisions were made based on current levels of accessibility and traffic flows. No thought has been given to the ramifications of such a momentous decision.”
Brent Davies, owner of the Teahouse at Ferguson Point through the Sequoia Company of Restaurants, said he thinks most tourists want to ride around the seawall, not on Park Drive with its steep climb up to Prospect Point.
“The general person who rents a bike to go around Stanley Park really wants to go around a level road and look at the ocean,” he said.
“There are a group of what I’d call extreme bikers, but that’s a very small part of the biking population.”
Davies said when pay parking came into effect in the park, it reduced business at his restaurant.
He says the same thing will happen if car traffic is reduced to one lane.
“It will turn into gridlock on a busy weekend,” he said.
Avery Madden, a Dunbar resident, said reducing car traffic to one lane is a sign that park board commissioners are “getting carried away, in my opinion.” He said he likes taking visitors on a drive in his car to show them Stanley Park.
He likes the ability to be able to stop when he wants to stop, not when there is a stop for a tram or bus.
Her ceremonial name, Wahiyow Cawapata Scoo, means Far Sees Woman and it is as apt as a name can be.
Barb Ward-Burkitt, a Cree member of the Fort McKay First Nation who has spent most of her life in northern B.C., has been named the new chairwoman of the Minister’s Advisory Council on Indigenous Women (MACIW).
Ward-Burkitt, who joined the council in 2014 and has served as vice-chairwoman since 2018, replaces the outgoing Chastity Davis, a member of the Tia’amin Nation who had held the position since 2014.
“It’s my understanding there are no other advisory councils on Indigenous Women, that it is a British Columbia thing,” the 67-year-old said from her home in Prince George. “Just like the legislation around UNDRIP is a British Columbian thing, too.”
The council was established in 2011; and last fall, B.C. became the first province to pass legislation implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Ward-Burkitt said that not only the minister responsible for the council, Scott Fraser (Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation), but other ministries as well seek the advice of the council, made up of 10 Indigenous women.
But do they heed it?
“Yeah, they’re taking it, but the other piece that I think is critically important is the council then reaches back out to them to see if that advice has been taken.”
From the time she was a little girl, Ward-Burkitt was determined to make a difference, no matter what obstacles were strewn in her way or how many hoops she had to jump through.
Her mother wasn’t taught to read in the residential school she was sent to, so from the time she was a young girl Ward-Burkitt would read to her. Her mom stressed the importance of an education, even though many or most Indigenous girls in the North never got beyond Grade 8.
She became a mom herself in Grade 11, but remained determined she would complete her Grade 12.
Head down and do the best you can, as she put it.
It was the beginning of a journey but not the end of her travails.
“I’m a survivor of domestic violence,” Ward-Burkitt said.
“I think violence against Indigenous women and girls, abuse, all of those things, I think for the most part there’s still a lot of silence around that.”
She has been a child care worker with Indigenous children and those with special needs, was a faculty staff mentor in field programs for Northern B.C. at SFU, and is the longtime executive director of the Prince George Friendship Centre, the largest of the 117 such centres across Canada.