David Godin: Sidewalks End in Richmond

From David Godin:

.

I live in the walkable, moderately dense area of Richmond just beside its downtown and within easy walking distance of SkyTrain. I like to describe it as being the ‘West End of Richmond’ and it’s working pretty well for me for the time being. I also work in Richmond in an office building in a business park area of the city where pedestrians were simply not considered when it was developed and the roads conveyed to the City. It’s a jarring transition to make each day.

.

By my office, the roads lack sidewalks and most are straight and stop-sign and traffic-signal-free to promote sustained speed, and the curves are forgiving enough to maintain that speed. Despite the business park being home to the RCMP HQ for Richmond, traffic enforcement is seemingly non-existent for the endemic running of stop signs, blatant speeding, and even driving the wrong way down one-way couplets. In this environment, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there is an utter failure to yield to pedestrians at intersections, even by RCMP vehicles!

When the roads are designed for sustained speed, and when landscaping comes straight to the curb with no sidewalks, crosswalks, traffic signals, or pedestrian lighting, and there are only a handful of stop signs that can be rolled through with impunity, it’s not surprising at all that pedestrians are ignored. This is landscape made for vehicles, full stop.

But what does one do here if they don’t want to walk on the landscaped grass medians that slope and drain poorly, making for a frequently slippery and muddy environment, or in the muddy, tree debris-clogged gutters with large continuous pools of standing water? What if one needs a level surface because they have mobility challenges and use a wheelchair? They must use the road, and this morning I snapped a photo from my office window of exactly that. I think this is disgraceful.

I’ve also attached a couple of photos taken a few steps away from my office where of the City of Richmond recently built a level, paved bus stop to serve the RCMP HQ, replacing the muddy ditch that was there before. Of course, it does not connect to any on-street sidewalks, which remain muddy lines of worn grass, but it does serve the new fenced-off sidewalk that leads to the police station.

Across the street, the small interior sidewalk on the former ICBC claim centre gives way to a very well-worn patch of earth and then grass medians in lieu of sidewalks. Despite the bus stop, I cannot see the City investing in the wholesale creation of pedestrian infrastructure around here, even with the fairly large number of people who work here and the presence of transit and the trip generator of stores and services in the vast Ironwood shopping centre adjacent to the business park. (Interesting quick point of trivia: Ironwood was Westbank’s first major project.)

Also attached are a couple of photos taken on the north side of Lansdowne Mall where the sidewalk quite simply ends only a couple minutes’ walk from Number 3 Road and the nearby Canada Line Station.

Narrow muddy footpaths (a depressingly common sight in Richmond) illustrate that demand for sidewalks most certainly exists and I’ll also note that this is a mid-block point where the sidewalks end and one must backtrack and divert to the next adjacent east-west street a block north to find a sidewalk or cut through Lansdowne Mall parking lot. Faced with those options, of course people are going to walk through the landscaping or press against the fence beside fast-moving traffic and walk the last hundred metres to Number 3 Road.

I took it for granted living in the City of Vancouver and Toronto that there would always be a sidewalk. Richmond does a pretty good job in general, but it’s jarring to suddenly find a sidewalk end in a central ‘downtown’ part of the city or to encounter an entire employment district where pedestrians were never considered and are unlikely to be for a very long time.