If the thought of crossing the Upper Levels highway via Lonsdale Avenue makes you nervous, you’re not the only one.
At a meeting April 22, City of North Vancouver council approved the next phase of planning work that would bring infrastructure improvements to that high-collision bridge crossing, as well as an active transportation “greenway” connecting Westview to Lynn Valley.
Specifically, council endorsed staff’s recommendation to settle on a route selected by the community that would take cyclists, pedestrians and other road users along 25th Street from Westview to Ridgeway, to Tempe Heights Park and eventually to Lynn Valley.
Staff will also look at options for making a safer crossing over the Upper Levels Highway, and how the greenway can be connected to that future active transportation crossing.
In 2022, a Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure study identified a need to improve safety at higher-collision major interchanges on the North Shore, which include the Lonsdale Avenue and Westview Drive overpasses. Around that time, the city began planning and taking public feedback to envision potential solutions.
Now, with a more developed plan, staff will split the project up into three phases. First, a two-way mobility lane on 25th Street between St. Georges Avenue and Chesterfield, including the Lonsdale interchange area; next, the remaining segments from Westview Drive to Chesterfield, and from St. Georges to Ridgeway Avenue; finally, a multi-use pathway through Tempe Heights Park from Ridgeway to Lynn Valley Road.
Top priority would go to the Lonsdale interchange, one of the top-five collision locations along the Upper Levels Highway.
“It is a motor vehicle dominated space with six lanes of vehicle traffic that does not meet many of the modern design standards,” said Justin Hall, manager of public infrastructure for the city.
“There’s no dedicated crossing spaces east-west or north-south for cyclists and other mobility device users,” he said.
Given that the overpass is under provincial jurisdiction, staff will have to work with the transportation ministry on design and developing a project work schedule, Hall added.
With planning expected to carry through 2025, construction is slated to being in 2026, he said.
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There’s definitely need for work on this overpass, said Coun. Tony Valente.
“I have anecdotal examples of parents who will not let their kids [or teens] cross alone on this overpass, seniors who have concerns, business owners who’ve been pushed out of the intersection by vehicles,” he said.
Coun. Don Bell raised concerns about conflicts between more casual road users and serious road cyclists, which he called “spandex people.”
“Can you have a separated bike lane from the pedestrians or the other users?” he asked.
Hall replied: “We heard loud and clear from the community the interest in separating users, especially where there’s space, and on 25th we do have space to separate these.”
Mayor Linda Buchanan said the Lonsdale overpass isn’t comfortable for anyone, and also needs to be looked at from an accessibility perspective – accommodating people in wheelchairs, for example.
She added that this work plays a core role in how the city creates safer access to the incoming Harry Jerome Community Centre in Central Lonsdale, and to the nearby commercial area.
“So it makes sense in many, many ways to be looking at something that’s going to improve the ability for people to actively get across that highway,” she said.
