A major construction project beneath Vancouver’s Stanley Park to replace a crucial but aging watermain is going ahead, with shovels expected to hit the ground next year.
The project will see crews spend five years digging a 1.4-kilometre tunnel through bedrock more than 30 metres beneath the surface.
Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation approved a land use agreement with Metro Vancouver Monday night needed for the plan to go forward.
Metro Vancouver says the work is necessary because the existing watermain, constructed in the 1930s, has reached the end of its service life. The line sprung a major leak near Lost Lagoon in 2016 that caused significant road closures, and a smaller one in the park earlier this year.
“Given the age of the watermain, it remains at risk of experiencing significant additional leaks with potentially greater impact,” said Murray Gant, Metro Vancouver director of major projects for tunneling.
“The majority of the work will take place deep underground, and the park businesses and visitors are not expected to experience significant disruptions to regular activities.”
Once completed, the watermain will be expanded from 1.8 metres to 2.6 metres in diameter, providing an expanded capacity to deliver fresh water to Vancouver, Richmond and Delta’s growing populations.
Work will be undertaken at shafts bored into the earth at three locations, one at the north end of Pipeline Road, one at a works yard in the centre of the park, and one at the park’s south end at Chilco Street.
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The majority of the work will be conducted from the central shaft, away from the public.
However, the Chilco site, which is adjacent to residential buildings in the city’s west end, has drawn concern from neighbours.
Residents say the area is already heavily congested, particularly with Beach Avenue at the west end of Denman Street now closed to outbound traffic.
“My concerns have been from the very outset the traffic management plan, I just don’t understand why fully-laden trucks are going to come up hill and by the looks of it exit the site on Denman Street and then up Davie — it’s just going to kill all those small businesses,” neighbour Jill Taylor said.
Taylor said project leaders have consulted heavily with park users, but have not been communicative with residents.
She argued if the work is to go ahead, the city should remove the dedicated bike lane on Beach Avenue to give trucks and drivers more outflow options.
“Recreational cyclists who are the ones who use that last section which has remained closed, they have to give way for five or six years,” she said.
West end resident William Demopoulos said many of the adjacent buildings are older and lack air conditioning or HVAC units, meaning their occupants rely on open windows to cool down.
He raised concerns about noise and dust, as well as the potential effects of a future heat dome if residents had to shut their windows due to constriction.
Demopoulos and other neighbours say they want the shaft to be dug in Devonian Harbour park on the other side of Georgia Street, and away from residential buildings.
“If we were weighing the impacts prior to selecting sites, we might select a different site, we might find it more affordable and more effective to take care of some of those … external costs, the costs that aren’t paid by the taxpayer but are paid by the people who are either driving through the area or living in the area or using the park,” he said.
Neighbour David Bronstein said many in the neighbourhood were also still in the dark about exactly how long work would be going on at the south site.
And he said he was worried about the future after the work is done, when a planned viewing platform is installed on top of the shaft site.
“There’s problems with not only garbage but drug paraphernalia, noise we hear from people during the day — which is fine, its a park — but at night?” he said.
“Having a viewing platform doesn’t seem to make sense.”
Gant said the location of the Chilco site was not negotiable, as geotechnical engineers had determined the Devonian Park site didn’t meet seismic safety requirements.
As for residents’ other concerns, Gant said the district was working hard to configure traffic for a smooth flow, and would have full-time noise monitors and dust mitigation strategies in place.
“We expect some noise impacts and so on, but we are going to be planning the work to maintain within our noise bylaw variances and work hours within the city,” he said.
“In addition to that we’ll be installing a noise barrier along Chilco Street to reduce noise as much as possible. And we’re also going to be implementing best management practices and special provisions for noise control.”
Metro Vancouver has yet to select contractors for the project, but work on the $300-million project is slated to begin late in 2024.
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