While gondolas, water taxies and ferries have been floated as a way of moving people from Queensborough to the Quay, planning for a land-based connection continues.
The City of New Westminster recently surveyed residents about a pedestrian/bicycle crossing from the Quayside neighbourhood to Queensborough. The city was impressed with the responses it received before the Oct. 16 deadline.
“The response from the community has been fantastic,” planning analyst Carolyn Armanini wrote in an Oct. 17 email to The Record. “I don’t know exactly how many but at last count it was around 150 (a few more have come in since).”
Staff will be summarizing the responses and presenting the information to council in November.
“We still have to meet with the special services and access committee and Quayside Community Board, which are scheduled for later in the month,” Armanini wrote. “After the report is taken to council detailed design work can begin, including refined cost estimates, and starting the permitting process and evaluating funding sources.”
As part of casino negotiations that allowed for expanded gaming in New Westminster, the city negotiated funds known as Development Assistance Compensation – known as DAC funds. The money was earmarked for projects in neighbourhoods in the immediate area of casino operations – the downtown where the Royal City Star riverboat casino got its start, and Queensborough, where it relocated to and operates as Starlight Casino.
The plans currently being explored would include a low-level crossing on or near Southern Railway of B.C.’s existing rail bridge. The railway has indicated it would be able to adapt its operating procedures to allow a low-level crossing that could be closed and available to pedestrians and cyclists.
Numerous Queensborough residents have repeatedly voiced the need for the crossing, particularly when traffic on the Queensborough Bridge is heavy and residents can't make a quick jaunt to the city's mainland.
As part of the consultation process, residents were invited to provide input into two options being explored. Both have a raised causeway from boardwalks on each side of the river leading to a movable centre span, but one option would connect to the existing rail swing bridge and the other option would be separate “bascule” bridge, or a drawbridge.
A staff report presented to council in June stated that the cost of building a connected bridge is estimated to be about $5 million and the cost of the bascule bridge is about $9.5 million. Having reallocated some of the funds originally allocated toward the project to the Anvil Centre, the city currently has $6.2 million in gaming funds available for the crossing and has until 2017 to use that money to build a crossing.
When the City of New Westminster announced in June that it would be consulting with the public about two low-level crossing options for a pedestrian and cyclist connection been the Quayside and Queensborough neighbourhoods, the director of planning and development for Aragon Properties stated the crossing was a “brilliant idea”. Aragon is developing the Port Royal site in Queensborough.
"It would be a game changer," David Roppel told The Record. "It will make Port Royal and Queensborough easier accessible for bicycling and walking to the Quay and New Westminster, and vice versa."
Some residents have suggested a gondola and a ferry service would be a different way of linking the Quay and Queensborough neighbourhoods. City officials have stated that a ferry service isn’t something that can be fund with the casino funds, which stipulated it would go to a pedestrian crossing.
