Spring is a time of beginnings, and, so, perhaps it is fitting that last Easter Mairi Lester and her boyfriend made New Westminster their new home.
Lester was born on Vancouver Island, but studied at Simon Fraser University and after some back-and-forth moving has now settled into the city that she comfortably calls home.
Lester, 27, and her boyfriend, David White, a plumber apprentice, chose New Westminster for the same reason so many do: its proximity to the Lower Mainland.
“Dave works in the trades and needs the flexibility to go to Surrey and Vancouver to a different site regularly, and New West offered like the town centre and more of a downtown feel without being an extra 30 minutes in traffic,” says Lester, whose career background is in sustainability and planning.
They previously lived in Kitsilano, and they loved the scenic beachfront neighbourhood except when it came to driving. It was too much city driving for White when he needed to get to job sites.
They had visited New Westminster a few times before they made the move.
“We sort of knew the area. We just started looking at places within our budget – we thought maybe Metrotown, but we started looking in New West and realized it really has a lot of the things we were looking for. We like to be able to walk to where we want to go – we like to be near a library and groceries. The SkyTrain was a big benefit to us because we only have one vehicle,” Lester says. “It feels like its own town. You don’t have to go to Burnaby and Vancouver for everything, and so that was a big draw for us.”
The couple lives in the Brow of the Hill neighbourhood, above Royal Avenue. Lester shares with readers a few more insights as someone who is new to New West:
Q: What do you think is the biggest misconception about New Westminster?
A: That it’s a city for old people.
Q: What challenges have you faced in New Westminster?
A: The hills are more of a challenge than I thought they would be as a pedestrian, not so much that it’s hard to walk up a hill, but they are psychologically a bigger barrier than I expected.
Q: What do you like about living here?
A: I like that to go downtown or we have friends that live in Langley – it’s really easy to get everywhere. Even (if we are) not driving, transit is easy. It’s only two zones to get anywhere. We were living in Delta for a bit, and it’s horrible because it’s three zones everywhere. It’s expensive, but it’s also long.
There’s lots to do here. We found there is lots of parks. There’s pretty good geocaching because we do some geocaching (an online treasurer hunt where one uses a GPS to hunt along with other participants).
Q: What would you change about the city?
A: It would be nice if there was more of an evening life, and I don’t mean evening like clubbing and that sort of stuff, but if there was more evening activities. Columbia (Street’s) not so bad, but if you go to Uptown at six o’clock at night, there’s like seven people walking around. It’s very quiet. Just to sort of get some more of the vibrancy. There’re great festivals in New West, but the festival ends and it kind of goes back to nothing.
Q: Does this city feel like home to you?
A: Yes, we really like it, and we are going to stay here.
Are you new to New West? Did you move here in the last year and are willing to tell our readers what brought you here? Please contact Niki Hope at [email protected].
