WATCH: A meeting has taken place Thursday night between concerned citizens and the city of Vancouver over the future of the city’s two viaducts. Nadia Stewart reports.
Strathcona residents have packed the meeting with representatives from the City of Vancouver Thursday night to talk about the fate of Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts.
Elana Zysblat with the Strathcona Residents’ Association says they hoped to find out whether the arterials will be moved out of the residential neighbourhood and into an industrial area.
An update from the head of transportation and the head engineer on the project as to what the removal plan will look like was presented.
“We know they are going to propose to remove the viaducts, but we are interested in seeing the new road network that they are proposing to replace it with,” Zysblat told Global News ahead of the meeting.
Zysblat says the last time residents met with the city to talk about the future of viaducts was almost a year ago when the association helped the city conduct a road safety audit on the Prior-Venables route. But the city claims the presentation of the audit took place in February of this year, and there has been email correspondence and a number of public events since then.
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“The consultation process has basically been absent,” she adds. “The city should have consulted. They did the work internally. They are now offering to present the results of their work to us.”
The city will be making a decision about the future of viaducts in September, which is why Zysblat and other have called for a special meeting to have a conversation about the future of the viaducts now.
Zysblat says they are aware the city is investigating the area north of Strathcona, which the association sees as an opportunity to re-route traffic and goods to go through an industrial area when the viaducts come down.
“We feel that it is ridiculous and unacceptable to plan for the next 50 years and maintain an arterial through a residential neighbourhood, when there is an opportunity to re-think this area of the city,” she says. “If the city is not ready to make a commitment, then we are definitely going to take action.”
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