City hall seeks opinions on Arbutus, Commercial Drive
While summer 2016 was the season of construction in Vancouver, fall will be the season of consultation.
The city has designs to draw out the opinions of residents on more than half a dozen major projects involving bike lanes, key roads, public spaces and garbage. Among them are controversial items like the futures of the Arbutus greenway and Commercial Drive.
A trio of open houses on the Arbutus greenway is slated for this week and next. Up for debate is the transportation corridor’s temporary future. The talks are something of a concession for upset residents, some of whom blocked city equipment from laying an asphalt path along the old train route.
Open houses on the issue are set for Kitsilano on Saturday, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.; Marpole on Sept. 21, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.; and Kerrisdale on Sept. 22, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. City staff say broader consultations on the long-term future of the greenway will come later this year.
Contentious plans for a bike lane on Commercial Drive are up for public comment during open houses in October. The bike lane appeared in the Grandview-Woodland community plan, which passed earlier this year. Dates are not yet posted for the open houses.
Also up this week for consultation are the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts — arterial roads that move traffic between east Vancouver and the downtown core. Last year, city councillors OK’d a $200-million plan to tear them down and free up land for development.
Consultation is set to start Thursday and continue with open houses into October. Opposition members came out against most of the plan as it stood last year. Among them was the Non-Partisan Association’s George Affleck, who called it a bad use of tax dollars.
Before councillors voted this spring to permanently close the 800 block of Robson Street to vehicles and buses, a group of West End seniors made their way to city hall to contest the plan. They and other residents will have a chance Thursday to influence the way the future plaza will look and feel.
An open house is planned from noon to 6 p.m. at the plaza that day and an online questionnaire on the matter is already live.