A new report on public spaces in Nelson recommends a partial car-free downtown, the elimination of angle parking, the creation of a downtown public square, improved snow removal and a trail from Cottonwood Park to the waterfront, among other changes.
Anni Holtby, Sean Ryan and George Chandler, representing the group Nelson at its Best, presented the organization’s Public Spaces Initiative Report to Nelson City Council on May 23.
The report’s recommendations are based on more than a year of work involving a survey of 571 people and several public conversations and events.
Public spaces are defined by Nelson at its Best as open spaces, civic buildings, streets and sidewalks that are publicly owned and accessible to all.
“The survey respondents demonstrated almost a yearning for a public square park in the downtown,” said Chandler. “They expressed often and strongly that this … would provide a much needed community space for people to gather, to socialize, and participate in events and activities in the downtown core.”
He said many respondents mentioned two already-existing spaces — the City Hall Plaza and Hall Street Plaza — and he said his group recommends more greenery, fewer hard surfaces and more seating in those places. Chandler said there is also the potential for a pop-up town square at the corner of Ward and Baker Streets.
As for a car-free downtown, Chandler said many people expressed the desire “to some degree or in some fashion,” whether it be permanent, or temporary on certain hours or days or seasons. He cited a variety of communities in which variations of this have been successful.
“Whatever the configuration,” Chandler said, “this feature would create a safer, more pleasant environment for pedestrians and encourage more active transportation options like walking and cycling.”
The full Public Spaces Initiative Report can be found at https://tinyurl.com/bddf9dpz.
Another suggestion for a more pedestrian-friendly downtown was a European model known as a continuous sidewalk, in which pedestrians at intersections don’t step down off a curb into the street, but cars have to drive up onto the level of the sidewalk, indicating and reinforcing pedestrian priority.
Councillor Jesse Woodward, referring to his former employment running downtown markets, said he agreed that pedestrian-only streets are a worthy goal and they change the urban atmosphere for the better, but he added some caveats.
“There are challenges, with the business community, transit, parking, the elderly. There are a bunch of results from shutting a street down, some positive and some negative.”
Chandler responded that Nelson at its Best is calling for an experimental approach to all of the innovations in the report.
‘Smaller, quicker, cheaper’
“We encourage city council, city staff, and business (to undertake) smaller, quicker, cheaper projects and initiatives that can be piloted and evaluated for their impacts,” Chandler said. “This approach can (incorporate) ideas that have been tried and adopted elsewhere but need to be tailored to a specific context of Nelson.”
The Nelson at its Best report also contains recommendations about access and connectivity in the other areas of the city.
Examples include a pedestrian link between Cottonwood Falls and the dog walk, greening and improving the area adjacent to Lakeside Drive in the vicinity of the Prestige and the mall parking lot, improving the trail access between the top of Vernon Street and Gyro Park, providing shuttles from the mall and other parts of town to the downtown and more public washrooms.
Holtby said some survey respondents “expressed concerns about the perceived threat from vulnerable people in public spaces and they called for more support for the transient population,” although the group did not mention what this support might entail.
Chandler said the recommendations in the report are in line with the city’s Nelson Next climate plan and they could be incorporated into the city’s upcoming review of its Official Community Plan.
READ MORE:
• ‘Imagine Nelson in 2050’: Council begins update of Official Community Plan
• A ‘pedestrian scramble’ for Nelson’s Ward and Baker intersection?
• Downtown redesign goes public
• Vancouver city council plans pilot project to test car-free Gastown for pedestrians
bill.metcalfe@nelsonstar.com
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