Would you be in favour of building a park over Highway 1 to bridge the North Vancouver communities together?
The city of North Vancouver's mayor, Linda Buchanan, has proposed an urban park stretching over Highway 1 near Lonsdale in order to bridge the north and south communities. Covid-19 has tested our communities in many ways and has pushed us to re-imagine what our cities can do to keep health and wellness (physical, mental, economic, and environmental) a priority. It has forced us to come out with safe outdoor gatherings options, increase outdoor dining spaces, and allow for responsible drinking in parks. These are just some of the first steps to re-imagining our cities.
To further re-imagine the City of North Vancouver, one may look at Highway 1. The highway crossings at Lonsdale and Westview for pedestrians remain a physical barrier, providing narrow sidewalks and making it dangerous to cross over.
According to Linda Buchanan, "covering Highway 1, for even just one block either side of Lonsdale, would both stitch our community back together and create a very large new park in a city that’s otherwise bound by ocean and another municipality. This new park would support the health and wellness of residents by increasing access to green space, reducing road noise, improving air quality and quality of life. It would create equal access to safe pedestrian and cycling connections with a short distance to shops and services. It would do so without forcing people to choose between public open space and transportation infrastructure."
The city would look at building this park through capital investments of local, provincial and federal governments as it would not come without many costs.
"Investing in people-oriented infrastructure creates an overall value and cost benefit over time as it creates savings in our health-care system, reduces GHG emissions and ultimately builds community. By using the airspace above the highway, we would be essentially creating new land, our most valuable asset."
We need to look at the long term social and economic benefits of having this infrastructure vs how much it will cost and who would be building this park.
Now is the time to create a "new" normal and improve on our infrastructures and think outside the box to create a more sustainable and healthier community for the future.
To read more about this proposed urban park, please click here.
If you have any questions or are looking to buy in North Vancouver, please contact Marco Pontillo.