The City of New Westminster is going to be checking in with uptown businesses to see if they’ve been impacted by the recently installed bike lanes on Sixth Street.
At its Nov. 28 meeting, council approved a motion to reach out to businesses along the corridor to see if they've been impacted as a result of the bike lane and to bring a report back to council’s Dec. 12 meeting. If businesses report impacts, the city will also ask them if they have ideas on ways those impacts could be mitigated.
Council approved the motion after hearing from Alicia Spanier, owner of Beach House Tanning in the 700 block of Sixth Street. On-street parking in front of businesses on the stretch of Sixth Street has been removed to make way for the New Westminster Secondary School cycling connector.
Spanier said she bought the business three years ago and signed a lease – at an increased rate – with the building’s new owner in July. Had she known about the city’s plan to build a bike lane in front of the building, she said she never would have signed a new lease.
“It is impacting us immensely,” she told council.
Spanier said September, October and November are normally the salon’s busiest months. Since the bike lane went in, she said business has dropped from 50 to 60 people a day to 10 or fewer customers.
“Had we known that this bike lane would have impacted us so much and was being put in, we would have not renewed our lease and (we would have) ended our business,” she said.
Spanier said hers isn’t the only business that has been impacted by removal of parking to pave the way for the new bike lanes.
“Everybody on our block is struggling,” she said.
Spanier said all of her family’s savings has gone into the business, which is now at risk. Although a city report indicated her business had been contacted about the bike lane, she insisted she had not heard about the project before construction began.
“This is killing our salon,” she said. “We're almost going bankrupt.”
Spanier said 374 people signed an online petition she and more than 100 people signed her paper petition. She said four other businesses have started petitions as well. (Prior to appearing before council, she spoke to the Record about the petitions and her concerns with the bike lanes.)
Coun. Nadine Nakagawa asked staff about the type of engagement that took place with businesses prior to the installation of the bike lanes.
Lisa LeBlanc, the city’s director of engineering, said the engagement for this project was “multi-staged” because of COVID.
“I can tell you that the city distributed a letter via Canada Post to about 2,800 addresses at the beginning of the project, letting people know about the project and engagement opportunities. The project team completed two business walkabouts, one on Oct. 5, 2021 and one on Feb. 3, 2022,” she said. “Notification letters were distributed during the summer advising about upcoming construction activities.”
In the last couple of years, the project team held several popup-style engagement opportunities in the neighbourhood and the city invited community members to provide feedback via a survey on the Be Heard website, LeBlanc said.
Nakagawa said it’s troubling to hear that a local business hadn’t heard about the project because engagement is a priority for the city. She said it’s something she’d like to be considered by the city’s public engagement task force.
Coun. Daniel Fontaine said referring the issue to a taskforce on public engagement is important could be fruitful, but the timeline doesn't work for business owners like Spanier. He put forward a motion that the city reach out to small business owners and report back on whether they’d seen an immediate impact with the opening of the bike lane.
“We clearly have heard from one business owner that there has been impact,” he said. “I'm just worried that if we let this go past Christmas and into the new year, there's going to be a lot of For Lease signs on that street.”
Coun. Paul Minhas said he’s visited the area at different times of the day to understand the impact the bike lanes may have had on the area.
“Definitely, there's hardly any foot traffic now, or any vehicles in the neighbourhood that would go to those businesses anymore,” he said. “So it does make a big difference for a small business like Alicia's.”
“We need to be thoughtful about it”
Nakagawa said she supports the spirit of the motion, but was challenged by what would happen if staff found that bike lanes are impacting businesses.
“Is the response to rip out the bike lanes? Is that what we're talking about? Because if that's what we're talking about, I think we need to be honest about it,” she said. “I will remember, as previous council, having a number of helmet-wearing moms in the audience talking about safety of their kids riding to school. And I just want to remind us that public engagement from one group cancelling public engagement from another group is problematic in my view.”
Nakagawa said she’d want council to have a more complete conversation about this before any decision is made.
“This is a major piece of infrastructure for the City of New Westminster. I fully recognize that it's time sensitive with businesses, but I don't think that we can just go around installing and ripping out bike lanes, willy nilly here,” she said. “I think we need to be thoughtful about it. And make sure that the public engagement is more complete and more conversational than a yes/no conversation. Because I think at this point, we are just pitting one group's interests against another, and I'm not willing to do that.”
Nakagawa put forward a “friendly amendment” to Fontaine’s motion, that the city’s engagement with businesses go beyond asking for yes or no answers about bike lane impacts, but also ask what they think could be done by the city to mitigate impacts.
Council approved Fontaine’s motion and Nakagawa’s amendment for staff to engage with businesses in the area where the bike lanes have been installed.
Follow Theresa McManus on Twitter @TheresaMcManus
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