A New Westminster councillor wants the province to explore the possibility of expanding or replacing the Queensborough Bridge.
Coun. Paul Minhas presented council with a motion to seek support from the B.C. Ministry of Transportation to undertake a feasibility study to expand the crossing capacity between the Queensborough and Connaught Heights neighbourhoods. The motion states that Queensborough residents can “often suffer quality of life issues” pertaining to delays crossing the bridge during peak periods and beyond.
“For very long time, Queensborough parents, children, school children have suffered a lot,” he said at Monday’s meeting. “There's only one entrance, basically, and exit out of Queensborough. They are sandwiched between Annacis Island, the Richmond side of Hamilton, and then you have the bridge.”
In a motion considered by council at Monday’s meeting, Minhas proposed:
- Council direct staff to develop a consultation plan to determine the level of interest from residents/businesses regarding prioritizing the future expansion or replacement of the Queensborough Bridge.
- Any expansion or replacement proposal should prioritize the movement of TransLink-operated buses, cyclists, taxis, ride-share and pedestrians across the bridge.
- The mayor write to the Ministry of Transportation to invite it to partner with the city during the Queensborough Bridge community consultation process.
Minhas’s motion said New Westminster is currently undertaking a community consultation related to the 22nd Street SkyTrain station neighbourhood, which could result in up to 30,000 new residents moving into the neighbourhood. At Monday’s council meeting, he said that is “basically building a new city within a city” in Connaught Heights.
“It has been a challenge on both sides of the bridge, and we need to look ahead,” he said. “We need to assess it now before we start building at the 22nd Street station.”
Council unanimously supported the part of the motion related to prioritization of buses, cyclists, taxis, ride share and pedestrians on any expansion or replacement proposal the motion. Council members also unanimously supported a slightly amended part of the motion, which is to have the mayor write to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure to invite it to partner with the city on a Queensborough Bridge community consultation process.
Council, however, voted against the part of the motion which would have had city staff develop a consultation plan to determine the level of interest from residents and businesses regarding the future expansion or replacement of the Queensburgh Bridge.
Coun. Nadine Nakagawa said it is “silent spending” for the City of New Westminster to have its staff do a consultation process on a project that is outside of the city’s jurisdiction.
“It's not free for our staff to do consultation. To do it properly, has costs,” she said. “I'm not sure if we're suggesting that we want to hire outside consultants or redirect from other projects or enhance our public engagement office, but I think we have to recognize that these consultation processes actually do have costs.”
Nakagawa said the Queensborough Bridge is the province’s jurisdiction, so it should be leading a consultation process about its future.
“I would also just note that we did just go through a long consultation process on the Queensborough transportation plan, and also just moved a motion to prioritize bus lanes to improve some of those issues,” she added. “So again, I think this is out of our jurisdiction. We're working on what's in our jurisdiction, so I do not support this.”
Mayor Patrick Johnstone said the Queensborough Bridge is not the city’s bridge or a project that would be undertaken by the City of New Westminster, so it would be “unusual and of questionable value” for the city to lead consultation process about its future. While he would support having the province do that consultation, he does not want the city to do that work for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.
Johnstone believes staff’s time is better spend on implementing items in the Queensborough transportation plan and the bus speed reliability plan, rather than embarking on another consultation process.
“I want our staff working on the implementation of those,” he said. “I want to see those actually happen.”
Coun. Daniel Fontaine, who supported his fellow New West Progressive councillor’s motion, said the motion is to have staff to develop a consultation plan, and could include having the city ask the province for the funding to undertake that work.
“I too am aware of the fact that Queensborough Bridge is not our project, but I'm also aware of the fact that in the countless conversations I have with people who live in Queensborough, who day in and day out and day in and day out have to face literally gridlock on that bridge,” he said.
Along with Johnstone and Nakagawa, councillors Ruby Campbell and Tasha Henderson voted against having staff develop a consultation process related to the expansion or replacement of the Queensborough Bridge.
Johnstone said the master plan that is being developed for the 22nd Street SkyTrain station neighbourhood will include a transportation plan.
“The goal of that plan is to come up with a comprehensive transportation plan around that project before we move forward with it… recognizing the challenges of that development, of developing that area, and the transportation challenges around that,” he said. “That's actually been the framework of everything we talked about as we've developed that master plan.”
