Port Moody council pushes for one-way design for Spring Street, sending planners back to drawing board

Rather than giving drivers the priority, the city should consider a more pedestrian-friendly, one-way design for Spring Street, Port Moody Mayor Meghan Lahti said at a recent council meeting.

“I don’t like the fact that we got a bunch of excuses why we couldn’t do it,” Lahti said. “We’re designing a transit-oriented area around cars, and so it bothers me.”

Several councillors concurred.

Project consultants and staff presented the updated Moody Centre Spring Street Design Guidelines on March 18, after council sent the first iteration back in January, specifically asking for more pedestrian-friendly elements, including the one-way street.

Council’s main concerns were over how constrained the neighborhood could become with a two-way street, which would shorten the width of the sidewalks, decrease building setbacks, create pedestrian conflicts along with parking and traffic congestion, and generally lower the walkability of the area.

Moody Centre consultant Jim McIntyre said planners explored the option for converting Spring Street into a strictly west-east moving corridor but found several key difficulties. He said there were concerns from an emergency response perspective, as a narrow roadway could limit maneuverability, cause traffic backups, and leave a lack of alternative routing.

Further concerns were raised by the developers around how the design would limit options for residents, commercial customers and deliveries, according to McIntyre.

He added the grocery store planned for PCI Development’s twin-39-storey project could also be put in jeopardy, as concerns were raised around its financial viability if it lost visibility and easy access.

The team traffic consultant also raised issues around longer queuing and wait times at peak hours of the day, as well as TransLink bus routes.

Mayor Lahti, however, said she thought most of these issues could be easily addressed. 

She said she raised the same concerns when Suter Brook Village was being planned 20 years ago – a development that has been continually plagued by traffic issues since its completion.

“Why are we hamstringing ourselves? This quarter should be less car-centric,” Lahti said. “There’s got to be a happy medium in there somewhere.”

Coun. Kyla Knowles raised concerns over how car-centric the design appeared, and questioned why on-street parking was even being considered.

She said her preference would be a design similar to Gastown’s Water Street.

“My concern is that we’re going to get people driving up and down that street looking for parking,” Knowles said. “I would prefer to just take that (option) out of their hands.”

Coun. Diana Dilworth agreed, noting Port Moody’s land use committee has raised concerns about curbside management throughout the Moody Centre development area.

Coun. Callan Morrison said he felt the streetscape felt “very cramped,” and every aspect of the design was suffering a little bit as a result.

He noted the sidewalk was just 1.9 metres in some areas, and the city already has conflicts on certain multi-use paths between cyclists and pedestrians.

“It’s less than six feet wide. You can barely pass two strollers beside each other single file,” Morrison said. “I’m still so torn about this one-way street thing.”

Following Tuesday’s meeting, the planners were sent back to the drawing board again to revisit the one-way street suggestion, along with possible adjustments to how far buildings should be set back from the street.

Coun. Haven Lurbiecki reiterated her position that council should not even be holding discussions on the Moody Centre’s design guidelines due to the amount of public opposition to the level of density being planned for the area, a lack of community engagement, and an unfinished official community plan.

She said council’s challenges with the guidelines demonstrate how overbuilt the area is, and why the community has concerns in the first place.

“I’m going to express, and keep expressing, my ongoing and immense concern over the process this council has and continues to take pertaining to what we’re doing in Moody Centre,” Lurbiecki said.

The Moody Centre Spring Street Design Guidelines are part of a framework to build up to 14 towers over 23 acres adjacent to the Moody Centre SkyTrain Station while creating a vision for the future mixed-use neighbourhood’s streetscape.