Building a pedestrian link between Westminster Pier Park and Sapperton Landing Park is no easy feat.
In October 2017, city council endorsed a conceptual design for the riverfront connection between the two parks that was developed in a joint study done by the city and TransLink. At the time, council also directed staff to proceed with a detailed design and cost estimate, in order to allow construction of the on-shore components to be done before the end of 2020.
Although the City of New Westminster’s draft five-year capital plan includes $4.5 million for land acquisition for public realm and park purposes – funds related to the proposed connection between the two waterfront parks – it will take some time before a pedestrian and cyclist connection between the two parks is built.
“There is ongoing technical work. That is a really complicated piece of greenway to develop,” said Lisa Leblanc, the city’s manager of transportation. “There is rail implications. There is the working river kind of implications. There are environmental implications. There are First Nations implications. We are just working through all of those implications and the risks associated with them and getting some questions answered. The work continues but it’s quite technical at this point, and we are just sorting through all the various stakeholder concerns.”
The city is still excited about the project, but Leblanc said it’s too early to say when it will get underway.
“I can’t give you a date. It also depends on other funding partners and having the whole thing resourced,” she said. “I can tell you we are continuing to chip away at it.”
When council endorsed the concept back in 2017, staff said the floating structure would be six-feet wide, have anti-slip surfaces so it could be used year-round and in different conditions, and would accommodate a variety of users including pedestrians, cyclists and people in wheelchairs.
Mayor Jonathan Cote said the city has a longstanding vision to connect the city’s riverfront greenway network and to link Sapperton Landing and Westminster Pier parks.
“It’s a project I am personally very interested in and passionate about. Having said that, I think we recognize there are some challenges in being able to deliver the project,” he said. “There is not a lot of land between the river and the railroad tracks, and Front Street in some areas there.”
Cote said there are definitely some “technical challenges” in being able to build a greenway that would have to be out in the river.
“We have had some preliminary conversations with both the port and the Marine Carriers. Certainly they have a very strong vested interest in the Fraser River there and how such structures might impact the navigable waters,” he told the Record. “We also recognize we have to go through proper reconciliation with Indigenous nations that have a strong interest in the Fraser River there.”
On top of that, Cote said the provincial government will soon be building the Pattullo Bridge right above the area where the riverfront connection would be located.
“I am still really, really excited about it but I think it’s one that we need to recognize that there is going to have to be a number of steps, a number of actions to be able to work toward that. It’s still part of the city’s vision and long-term plans, we still want to take steps like acquiring all the property rights to be able to make that connection, but I think we also need to recognize that it’s not going to be a straightforward process and there’s a lot of work between now and having the project become a reality.”
As part of the city’s decision to allow gaming expansion, in 2007 it negotiated $60.5 million in development assistance compensation (DAC) funds for five projects in the downtown and Queensborough. In 2017, staff told the Record the city must spend the DAC funds by 2020, but the Pattullo Bridge replacement project wouldn’t be completed until 2023 – so the idea was to complete the on-land extensions to Westminster Pier and Sapperton Landing parks by 2020 and then bring in the floating bridge sections and complete the greenway in 2023/2024.
Cote said there is still $5 to $6 million in DAC funding available for the riverfront connection.
“We have been in constant conversations with the provincial government on the financial component of the DAC funding available. They, the province, has given us some flexibility – both in terms of timing but also in terms of how we might be able to allocate those fund,” he said. “If this project doesn’t fit in the timelines, we will have some flexibility to reallocate it potentially to some other riverfront greenway projects that the city is working on.”
