Category: New Westminster

A proposal for New Westminster’s street parking

If there’s one thing that really makes my head spin, it’s street parking in New Westminster.

I’m really of two minds about street parking.

On one hand, I really hate it. I think New Westminster’s residental parking permits are way too cheap at $5 per vehicle per year (for renewals — the first year is $10). Compare that with Toronto’s, where it’s currently $14.71 (plus GST) per month for the first vehicle, or 37 times more expensive than New Westminster’s, and that’s only if you don’t have any on-site parking! If you do have a garage or driveway, a parking pass costs $51.54 (plus GST) per month, nearly 130 times as expensive as New West’s! Five dollars a year for a place to store your vehicle is a huge gift from the city that’s only available to car owners, and it’s about time we change that.

On the same hand, I really hate it. It makes cycling dangerous, particularly along streets that allow parking on both sides. The Crosstown Greenway along Seventh Avenue is particularly bad for this, as it has minimal traffic calming and turns into a shitshow during rush hour because there’s only one travel lane on a street that’s about 8 metres wide. Cyclists can either cycle on the sidewalks (which gets pedestrians pissed off at them) or on the street (which gets drivers pissed off at them), and in both locations they’re likely to win a door prize.

On the other hand, street parking does mean that in theory land need not be turned into a parking spot, which could help increase housing density. Instead of being forced to build a garage, a landowner could build a laneway house. New Westminster is currently updating its Official Community Plan with the aim of increasing density in the city, and eliminating (or drastically reducing) the “put in a parking spot” requirements will help do this, and street parking will help fill the void.

So here’s my two-pronged proposal for New Westminster:

  1. Increase the fees for parking permits, and peg them to inflation. I really like Toronto’s two-tier structure, where you get charged a lower rate if you don’t have on-site parking. I also like their structure where the second car costs much more. My proposal is this: $5 per month per vehicle for the first two cars, then $15 per month per vehicle for every car after that.
  2. Eliminate parking minimums for low-density residential, which I consider everything from single-family detached houses to quadplexes. For rowhouses and townhouses, cut the parking requirements in half. For everything larger, cut parking requirements by 25% and have massive incentives for developers to promote alternate modes of transportation. I would really love to see a parking-free condo building like Calgary recently approved, but I doubt that’ll ever happen in New West. But by making street parking cheaper for those houses with no on-site parking, we can promote moving away from land for cars to land for people.

These two changes will make a lot of single-family detached house owners lose their shit. And you know what? Too bad. The single-family detached house is doomed for extinction in New Westminster, and this should be the beginning of the end of catering to this housing option. We need to do more to reduce car use in our city, and single-family houses are the largest source of cars here. If we increase the friction for car ownership, we reduce the number of car owners. If we reduce the number of car owners, we can hopefully reduce the number of cars on our streets, making them more accommodating to other forms of transportation, and making our city a nicer place in which to live.

Education Minister tours NWSS

BC Education Minister Mike Bernier recently toured New Westminster Secondary School at the invitation of New Westminster MLA Judy Darcy. NWSS is scheduled to be replaced, and Darcy invited Bernier to show him the deplorable conditions in the school.

“NWSS is in bad shape,” Darcy said. “It’s really put New Westminster on the map, and we want to make sure that the new school reaches new heights in shoddiness to keep New Westminster in focus.”

NWSS principal Phil Cookson pointed out different areas of concern. “As you can see, we have droppings here,” he told Bernier near a crawl space under the Massey wing. “If we can get the Ministry to build the new school in such a way that we attract more rats to our school, we can turn NWSS into the ideal location to study hantavirus and other airborne diseases. Researchers from around the world will flock to NWSS, which will help inspire our children in the future.”

Cookson also highlighted the secondary benefits of the run-down school.

“Any time we have a leak in a pipe, we have to have a hazmat crew come in,” he said. “This helps keep high-paying jobs in the community, teaches our children about safety and disaster planning, and gives our children ideas about jobs in the future. We are also investigating internships with New Westminster Fire & Rescue Services and local water damage restoration and remediation companies.”

School board chair Jonina Campbell was cautiously optimistic.

“Getting the new high school has been a focus of the school board for a number of years. By upgrading NWSS’s dangerous and unteachable state, we hope to keep this issue in the community for years to come so we have something to talk about during the next election.”

Cote announces Quebec expansion plans

New Westminster Mayor Jonathan X. Coté today announced New Westminster’s expansion into the province of Québec. Local community builders (and all-around great people) Briana and Will Tomkinson are spearheading the future annexation of Montréal with their move earlier this week.

“I cannot be more excited about these plans,” Mayor Coté said. “With their years of experience in bringing communities together in New Westminster, we have high hopes that the Tomkinsons will bring Montreal under the thumb of New Westminster in the coming months.”

A long-time proponent of expanding New Westminster’s land base, Mayor Coté is also not afraid to use force, if necessary.

“While we hope that we will be able to annex Montréal through peaceful means, Will’s collection of axes may be required in the future. We urge the people of Montréal to surrender peacefully.”

The expansion plans to La Belle Province should not have come as a surprise, Mayor Coté said. “I mean seriously, I had the foresight to be born to parents with an accent in their name. These plans have been in the works for a long time.”

And Mayor Coté had the following message for Montréal: “The X stands for ‘expansion’, bitches.”

Where is Chloe Ellis?

Chloe Ellis, we miss you. Sure, I’m writing while you’re at the only meet-the-candidates event you’ve participated in in New Westminster, but you’ve skipped every other one (including the two that I went to), you didn’t answer the local paper’s questions, and even worse, you didn’t answer my questions. Egregious!

But we all know you’re busy. You haven’t said what you’re busy doing when you’re too busy to meet with people you’d like to vote for you, so that’s up for speculation.

So let’s speculate! Here are the reasons I thought up that would make you too busy to show up to meet your voters:

  1. Skydiving to deliver the game ball for the Hyacks Football homecoming game.
  2. Lobbying the Competition Bureau so New Westminster finally gets a Save-On-Foods. (HEY SHUT UP THIS JOKE NEVER GETS OLD)
  3. Recording another music video.
  4. You refuse to answer anybody who doesn’t put the acute accent into Chloé Ellis.
  5. Lining up for a sweet new iPhone 6s Plus.
  6. Reading over the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, but sorry, she’s unable to tell anybody about it.
  7. Conspiring with all the other Conservative no-shows in planning a massive victory party for Stephen Harper.
  8. Lining up for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
  9. Trying to hack the polls to make the Conservatives look better.
  10. Scouring the local thrift shops to find a red trenchcoat for that perfect Halloween costume.

Proposed changes to New Westminster community shuttle routes

TransLink is blowing up New Westminster’s community shuttle routes. Or, at least, they’re proposing it. Here, in a nutshell, are their proposals:

  • Discontinue the C3 and C8 routes that service Quayside Drive, Victoria Hill, and southern Sapperton, replacing them with a “New J” route that would service Quayside Drive and Victoria Hill.
  • Discontinue the C4 route that services Downtown, Queens Park, and Uptown, replacing it with a “New H” route that services Downtown, Queens Park, Uptown, and parts of Sapperton and Glenbrook North.
  • Reroute the C9 to service Richmond Street.

Here’s why this is awesome:

  • The C3 is always busy during the morning rush hour. It picks up people from Sapperton before hitting Victoria Hill. Anybody who follows me on Twitter knows that this route frequently leaves people behind in Victoria Hill. Starting the “New J” route in Victoria Hill means it starts with an empty bus, so people won’t get left behind.
  • The C3 is always busy during the evening rush hour. When it leaves from New Westminster SkyTrain Station it’s almost always full, so there’s no room to pick people up at the Columbia SkyTrain Station. With only Victoria Hill on its drop-off route, this means fewer pass-ups.
  • The rerouting of the 154 in 2013 led to a less direct route for seniors between the Royal Square Mall and Uptown. Adding the “New H” route directly addresses this, and restores that vital connection.
  • There are no more bus routes on McBride Boulevard, which is always rammed with people trying to get to the Pattullo Bridge. This means improved reliability, as buses won’t get caught in traffic as often.
  • Combining the C8 and part of the C3 into one route makes sense. Yes, the new route is one between residential areas, which isn’t typically good for routes as they end up being under-used, but putting a SkyTrain station in the middle changes things. Both halves of the route can be full towards the SkyTrain station in the morning, and full away from the SkyTrain station in the evening, and everybody’s happy. I hope that the frequency of service won’t change, as both routes are currently at a cadence of every 15 minutes during rush hour.

These proposals aren’t set in stone, mind you. TransLink is asking for feedback on this and other changes, so go look at the proposals and speak your mind before November 6!