A Brow of the Hill resident is urging the city to “simplify” its proposal for bike lanes on Seventh Street.
In late 2024, city officials engaged with community members about proposals for the Seventh Street corridor as part of the Active Transportation Network Plan. A number of changes are proposed to the corridor, including: adding a two-way bike lane from Belmont Street to Agnes Street; changing Seventh Street from two-way traffic to one-way northbound traffic for vehicles between Fifth Avenue and Queens Avenue; requiring northbound traffic on Seventh Street to turn right onto Fourth Avenue (vehicles will no longer be able to continue along Seventh Street to get to Sixth Avenue); and creating curb extensions at corners to slow down traffic and shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians. To accommodate the two-way bike lane and improved sightlines, the city is also proposing to remove about 39 street parking spots along Seventh Street.
Adrian Fehr, who lives on a small dead-end street between Sixth and Seventh streets, said he attended the city’s information meeting about the project in December. His view: the initial plans “seem kind of choppy” for Seventh Street.
“There's a bike lane for part of it. Part of the bottom of Seventh turns into a one-way street going back up the fourth,” he told council Monday night. “Vehicle traffic is forced to turn on the Fourth.”
Instead, Fehr suggested the city should take out one row of parking all along Seventh Street, from Sixth Avenue to Queens Avenue, and turn it into mobility or bike lane.
“You'd still have two-way traffic and still have parking on one side of the street,” he said. “If, some time in the future, you decide that the project doesn't work, it's easy to change back. It's really, really low cost. You can put up barriers or barricades along there to keep it fully separated.”
Fehr, a bus driver, said scooters and e-bikes have changed the city and will continue to do so in the future. He doesn’t think bike lanes are well-used at this time of the year and suggested those lanes could be used for parking from Nov. 1 to May 1.
Speaking as a delegate at council’s Jan. 13 meeting, Fehr said the proposed changes would impact his ability to get out of his neighbourhood during rush hour. The Robson Avenue resident said he exits his home via a back alley and Seventh Street because of the traffic on Sixth Street during rush hour.
“Where we live, the traffic comes down Sixth Street every afternoon and gets backed up going to the bridge, and getting out of Robson onto Sixth is impossible. … If Seventh, at that point, is turned into a one way, we are trapped; we can't get out of our neighbourhood,” he said. “That was my whole idea of … leaving it as two-way street – so that we can get out.”
Fehr also said he’d like the city to eliminate the “forced turn” onto Fourth Avenue for northbound traffic on Seventh Street. Not only is Fourth Avenue backed up between Sixth to Eighth streets every afternoon, but he said that concept would “cut off shoppers” trying to access Royal City Centre.
As a bus driver, Fehr said he’d like to se the city incorporate transit lanes into its transportation plans.
“I know we're putting in bike lanes with the best of intentions, but they're just not get used, whereas transit 24/7, 365, on any given day, there's buses full,” he said. “I drive out of New West station, and there's a lot of times I have to leave people behind because I'm at my capacity.”
Fehr added: “Other than death threats, the only thing I hate about the job is having to leave someone behind.”
In a Dec. 9, 2024 update on Be Heard New West, the City of New Westminster said the engagement phase for the Seventh Street corridor project had concluded and city staff were working to analyze and report back on the feedback heard before finalizing the detailed designs for this route. Engagement included an online survey and an open house.
Coun. Daniel Fontaine said he attended the Dec. 4 session.
“I have attended a lot of public events. I have never been mobbed like I was at that particular event. There was a circle of people around both Councillor Minhas and I and we heard an earful from people who live in that neighbourhood, who were both surprised by the design proposal, upset; I mean, I won't continue on the various adjectives, but they expressed a lot of what you had said,” he told Fehr. “There were other iterations or other different possibilities.”
Fontaine said he rarely sees cyclists using the bike lanes on uptown on Sixth Street or downtown on Agnes Street.
“They're definitely underutilized. So that's why I appreciate you coming in and making sure that, before we make these investments in future bike lanes, we listen to the community and listen to recommendations like yours,” he said. “They may not all be able to get incorporated into the final design, but let's make sure that, if we build these things that that we actually make sure that they're usable.”
Coun. Nadine Nakagawa, who lives near the Agnes Street Greenway, said the bike lane is well used for a variety of purposes, including learning to ride bikes. A former resident of Seventh Street, Nakagawa thanked Fehr for his idea about converting a parking lane to a cycling lane and noted a majority of council supported bus priority lanes.
“I totally support active transportation. And also, 90 people on the bus is a lot of people that you could be moving through quite actively,” she said. “So, I really don't want these ideas to compete against each other but be complementary.”
Mayor Patrick Johnstone said the active transportation network plan, which includes mobility lanes across New West, will take several years to build.
“It’s going to take us a lot of years to get these routes connected in the way that we actually need for a useful network,” he said.
As each new piece of the network is created, Johnstone said the city will have conversations with neighbours about what’s being considered. As for buses, Johnstone said bus priority lanes “will be an interesting conversation” as the city moves towards bus rapid transit routes through TransLink.
“We have got money from TransLink locally to do bus speed and reliability in a few of those really irritating spots where the buses just get caught in traffic,” he said. “There's nothing worse than 100 people on a bus getting stuck behind four cars and traffic.”
