More about the Sapperton/United Boulevard workshops: a Q&A with Gary Andrishak, workshop facilitator
More about the Sapperton/United Boulevard workshops: a Q&A with Gary Andrishak, workshop facilitator
We’ve got two Sapperton community/United Boulevard workshops coming up soon, so to give us a bit of background, I talked to Gary Andrishak, who works with IBI Group and will be facilitating these workshops.
Gary and IBI Group have been hired to facilitate these workshops to give some independence to the proceedings, aiming to ensure residents and businesses in New Westminster and Coquitlam are heard in the process of coming up with solutions.
In this interview, Gary talks a bit about his background, the goals for the workshops, and what people can expect when they attend. Read on for the full Q&A!
This consultation is sort of an expansion of the United Boulevard consultation we did before December. What exactly will happen and how is it different from the prior consultation?
Well, my understanding is that some local residents and businesses had concerns about the about the options presented at the time. But these new sessions are looking at the community of Sapperton, identifying what people value about it, and finding out whether there are solutions that satisfy both the community’s needs and the traffic flow issues that TransLink is trying to solve.
What can people expect to do during these consultations?
At these new sessions, I expect people to give us good ideas to work with, but in turn, it’s my intention that they do some work too. At the end of the first session, I will challenge them to get out with a camera and say what they will do better. Talk to people, do an internet search, come up with an answer to bring up to the second session. So with the first one, they’ll tell us what they don’t like, and the second they should tell us what they do like. That’s different than what happened last time.
If you don’t come to the first session, can you still go to the second one?
It’s four workshops and each one builds on the last one. But it doesn’t mean if they don’t go to the first one they can’t figure out what’s going on—we’ll do recaps of the earlier ones and we’ll play out what’s happening this week. I think it’s kind of an exciting way to do it. It’s hands on, and it’s honest, in that we really don’t know what the end result will be.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself? How are you suited to facilitating these types of workshops?
I’m a director with IBI Group, and we’re a multinational planning/architecture firm. The projects I work on generally integrate land use and transportation planning.
I got into this business honestly and by accident in the 1980s in Calgary. The City of Calgary wanted to build the LRT to the university through three inner city communities that were pushing back. They weren’t sure what to do and they hired me to intervene. I’d built up my credibility at city hall and I lived in the community, so they thought I might be a fair representative for both sides.
The first thing I learned was how to listen. In those days the transportation department didn’t understand that there would be anything beyond engineering criteria to any decision. They thought this made good engineering sense and they couldn’t understand why this did not make sense for the community. We worked over a couple years and I went to 600 meetings, but we found common ground.
There is an art and a science to this. I think that’s why I got called into this one. There’s a discipline called context sensitive design, which we’ll talk about at next Saturday’s workshop, and it addresses aspects of design beyond engineering decisions. It looks at building projects that are designed to fit into surrounding communities by addressing community values and needs.
That’s important and has to be factored into what we do. So that’s the kind of work that we will be doing when we embark on this process: really listening to what the community thinks, positively and negatively, and how they can be part of the solutions.
And what do you think you can ultimately bring to this discussion?
I think I bring experience. And the curiosity, to not mind getting thrown into tough situations and trying to find common cause to move forward. I have facilitated these things for 25 years, and there probably are solutions that will benefit both TransLink and the community. And for some reason, after all these years, I’m still an optimist. If I’m pessimistic, the game’s over before you start.
You’ve looked at the area: what are your observations on the region and its challenges?
On Tuesday [last week] I did a walk audit. The first thing that struck me was that if we look at both sides of this equation, you really look at Brunette Avenue differently if you’re walking along it or if you’re looking at it from a map. What hit me was, “What a mess traffic is as it goes eastward on Braid and to United Blvd.”
It’s a combination of the train track and the funny little single lane bridge and we were there when a mile-long train went by. And everything just stops. Everything backed up on Brunette past Columbia. It was noisy and it was uncomfortable.
By the same token, if you look at it from Sapperton’s viewpoint, walking on the west side of Brunette, it’s a really unpleasant walk. When you talk about the rarefied price of Vancouver real estate, you go, is this even in the same metropolitan area? But if you live 2 blocks to the west, you’ve got beautiful tree lined quiet streets. These are communities with great value. And I don’t want to prejudge because I want to hear what the community says, but we need to have better edge conditions there.
Are you on anyone’s side in this workshop situation?
Well, the answer is neither… or both. Out of this, I think the optimal one is where everybody feels they got what they want. I’m there to facilitate that, and use both my experience and enthusiasm to try to make that happen.
Thanks very much, Gary!
A reminder that the first two workshops will take place on Saturday, March 12, 2011 from 9:30 a.m. to noon, and Wednesday, March 16, 2011 from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., at the Sapperton Pensioners Hall (Google map).
And again, you can find out more about these workshops in this Buzzer blog post or on the TransLink Sapperton/United Boulevard consultation page.
In reality this is more than a Sapperton issue, it affects all of New Westminster, in the sense it will mean an increased flow right across the City. The residents of Lower Sapperton are definitely the most directly affected, but to focus solely on that neighbourhood misses the bigger picture.
Part of that bigger picture is the fact New Westminster council has directly stated they will not support a piecemeal approach to this project. That a UBE without Front Street mitigation is off the table. So that being the case, why is Translink dragging all these poor staff members out on evenings and weekends chasing $60 million in federal funding for a project that is FAR larger than this sum and that simply won’t be approved by New West in it’s current form. It seems like somewhat of a fool’s errand.
Finally at a meeting last weekend discussing this project we had a perplexing quandary. Why is Translink even connecting to United Boulevard in this way? We have a 8 lane highway being built just a few hundred metres away. We have the Lougheed Highway which is a much wider road with fewer traffic lights (and the label “highway” already on it). Why would we designate little United Boulevard, barely wide enough for 4 lanes (and not wide enough if you want bike lanes), full of curves, traffic lights and a LOT of driveways in and out of businesses as a truck route? And then you want to fill this road with trucks? Does that make any sense? Because it sounds actually quite dangerous to me.
The NFPR is a line on a map, if nothing’s been built yet, wouldn’t it make far more sense to designate one of these larger, parallel roads as this magical perimeter road? It’d certainly save a lot of money.
My friend had a good quote about “mitigation” this weekend, which seems to be the magic way we’re going to make this project okay, “Mitigation is bandages during a shootout, if you just stop shooting you won’t need so many bandages.”
“the traffic flow issues that TransLink is trying to solve”
The traffic flow issue TranLink needs to solve is too much motor vehicle traffic. And cities around the planet have discovered that trying to build you way out of congestion with more roads is like trying to solve congestion with a longer belt. But in this case a longer belt that would cost perhaps $1 billion, just for the NFPR through New West.
TransLink needs a clear mandate to focus on transit and other low-carbon transportation, not road building. SFU is bringing some great ideas from Korea on this – http://www.livableregion.ca/blog/blogs/index.php/2011/03/03/improve_transit_then_replace_the_freeway
Of course that should be: trying to build you way out of congestion with more roads is like trying to solve obesity with a longer belt.
I wonder if the planner is willing to look at other ways of moving goods and people through the UBE corridor, and not just more cars and trucks?
So we route the NFPR via Brunette to Routes 1/7, then what?
We would still need to widen Brunette all the way from Columbia to Lougheed. We would still have the ridiculously unsafe intersection and railroad crossing at Braid, not to mention the woefully inadequate intersection at Columbia and Braid.
And with all this in mind, there is still the issue of Front Street. The city has a pretty useless parkade there, especially since they decided to cut the capacity of Columbia in downtown to add parking. And the issue of dangerous goods movements would be a matter of contention with a stacked configuration.
The City of New Westminster spends a lot of its time pointing fingers at everyone and not coming up with solutions of its own.
Thank you, all, for speaking out on this issue. I’m sick and tired of all the road building, but I was concerned that you were getting tired of my ranting. :^D
I’m reminded of the Twitter discussion. Despite our efforts, they continue as if we never even said anything. Despite there being no positive comments in favour of the status quo, they increased their spam, as far I as can tell.
In this case we must speak out, but I assume that they’ll fall all over themselves to spend money to get that funding. It’s as if this is free money with no consequences. It’s as if building a highway won’t create congestion. With all of this money they spend, I wouldn’t be surprised if they could build the Evergreen.
[…] And stay tuned: tomorrow, I’ll have an interview with Gary Andrishak, who is facilitating the workshops, which goes into a LOT more detail on the workshops’ approach and what to expect! Edit: Here’s the interview with Gary! […]
Thanks everyone for the comments so far: as always, I’m passing your feedback on to the project team.
[…] 60 people attended, including many residents from the Sapperton area. As we talked about before, Gary Andrishak from IBI Group facilitated the session and started it off with a brief presentation (see the presentation […]
I am concerned that, in not wanting to disturb a few residents in the lower Sapperton area, the needs of many may not be served.
The Braid / Columbia Street intersection is terrible. Going east down Braid to Brunette we (many, many people) have to wait for many lights before we can turn left to get onto the Brunette to get to Coquitlam or to the Trans Canada Highway.
If done right, the United Boulevard extension could eliminate the light at Braid and Brunette by providing us with a ramp onto the Brunette, creating a seamless flow.
And, if done right, the extension could allow us to use ramps to get from Braid directly onto United Boulevard or from United Boulevard direct to Braid.
This is the type of planning that would get the most out of the United Boulevard extension. It is what should have been done back in the 20th century.
Tom Gibson