Traffic calming near Michaud Crescent & 201A Street. Borrowing ideas from New York.

Two of the key priorities for Langley City residents that I’ve heard are to slow down people who speed through our streets, and improve safety for all street users. The most visible project completed this year that addressed both priorities was 203 Street. Traffic calming was also approved along sections of 50 Avenue and 198 Street this year. You can read about some of the coming safety measures including speed tables, raised crosswalks, road narrowing, and curb extensions on a previous blog post.

There has also been a demand from residents along Michaud Crescent, near 201A Street, to implement traffic calming measures. There is a future plan to transform Michaud Crescent into a greenway, but traffic calming is needed today.

Former New York Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan transformed streets in her city by applying “paint and planters” for quick wins to improve safety. Based on the success of projects, they would be made permanent over time.

Sadik-Khan’s Department of Transportation also kept metrics on the success of these projects. For example, in the Making Safer Streets guide, it highlights how narrowing roads at crosswalks and intersections reduced crashes, injuries, and conflicts. You can view more resources on her website.

Sadik-Khan “paint and planters” style projects are showing up in cities throughout Canada and the US. Langley City is no exception. One of the risky intersections in our community is Michaud Crescent & 201A Street. Langley City is proposing to narrow the intersection with paint and bollards. This is an example from another community:

Example of interim curb narrowing design in Austin, Texas. Source: CityLab.

This is the proposed design for our community:

Proposed interim design for the Michaud Crescent and 201A Street intersection. Select image to enlarge.

This interim design will reduce the amount of time where there is walking/driving conflict. Because of the narrowing, it will make seeing a person crossing easier if you are driving, as the start of the crosswalk will now be in your field of vision.

The traffic calming proposal also includes installing speed tables as shown.

Proposed speed table locations around Linwood Park. Select image to enlarge.

If you would like to provide feedback on these proposed traffic calming measures, please visit the City’s website. Feedback is being accepted until August 10.

Double-digit transit ridership growth in the South of Fraser. 96 B-Line ridership mostly responsible.

TransLink released its 2016 Transit Service Performance Review. The review looks at ridership and other performance metrics of the SkyTrain, SeaBus, West Coast Express, and bus network.

The 2016 results are good, ridership is up on the SkyTrain and bus network which transports the vast majority of transit customers. Ridership on the West Coast Express and SeaBus declined, though to put that into perspective, more people take the 3 bus along Main Street in Vancouver than the SeaBus. Ridership was up 4.5% across the whole network in 2016.

The fastest growing ridership in Metro Vancouver is in the South of Fraser. Between 2015 and 2016, ridership grew an astounding 10%, and 5% over the last 5 years. No other part of Metro Vancouver has seen this level of growth. The numbers show that there is a pressing need for more transit service in the South of Fraser.

Annual Bus APC Boarding by Sub-Region. Select chart to enlarge.

One of the biggest drivers of ridership growth in the South of Fraser is the 96 B-Line which runs along King George Boulevard and 104 Avenue. In fact, more people took the 96 B-Line last year than the 97 B-Line which was replaced with a SkyTrain extension.

Running along Fraser Highway, the 502 is in the top 10 list for most crowed routes in the region. New to the list is the 555 which runs between Carvolth Exchange in Walnut Grove and Lougheed SkyTrain Station.

Most Crowded Routes (Annual Revenue Hours with Overcrowding). Select chart to enlarge.

In general, areas with the lowest ridership in the region are South Delta and Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows.

When looking at the SkyTrian numbers, I noticed an interesting anomaly. Most SkyTrain stations have a balanced number of people that enter and exit stations during a regular day. This is not the case for King George and Surrey Central stations.

Because of how the bus network functions in the South of Fraser, people use King George Station more in the morning. People get onto the SkyTrain system at this station because it saves around five minutes as opposed to going all the way to Surrey Central Station to get onto the SkyTrain system.

During the afternoon, most people get off the SkyTrain network at Surrey Central because most routes begin at that station. If most people are like me, it is so we don’t get passed up at King George Station.

The busiest SkyTrain stations are located in Downtown Vancouver. Metrotown is also an extremely busy station. The top five busiest stations have between 18,500 and 24,100 weekday entries on average. The least busy SkyTrain station is Sea Island Centre at YVR. It has only 700 weekday entries on average.

With renewed investment in transit service thanks to the funding of phase 1 of the Mayors’ 10-Year Transportation Vision, transit ridership will only continue to grow. TransLink is expecting even higher ridership growth this year compared to 2016. In the first quarter of this year, ridership has already increase 6.3% compared to the same period in 2016.

For more information, please check out the 2016 Transit Service Performance Review page on TransLink’s website.

July 24, 2017 Council Meeting Notes: Additional $21,658 in community grants approved, development along 198 Street moves forward

In BC, local governments receive 10 percent of the net revenue from a casino that is hosted in their community. Cascades Casino is located in the heart of Downtown Langley. Langley City’s policy is to use the revenue we receive from the casino to invest into capital improvement projects and community grants. $168,000 per year is distributed to organizations through our community grant program.

Grant policy information and an application form is available on the City’s website. Grants are allocated at the beginning of the year. Earlier this year, I posted a list of organizations that received a community grant. The full $168,000 was not distributed at that time, so a second intake was opened.

Of the second intake grant applications received, Langley City council approved grants for the following organizations:

• Big Brothers Big Sisters of Langley: $1,250.00
• Boys and Girls Club of Langley: $730.00
• Children’s Wish Foundation: $1,000.00
• Langley Animal Protection Society: $3,500.00
• Langley Baseball Association: $5,000.00
• Langley Community Services Society: $ 1,378.00
• Langley Division of Family Practise – Youth HUB: $5,300.00
• Langley School District Foundation – HD Stafford: $2,200.00
• Moving Forward Family Service: $1,300.00

These organizations received a total of $21,658 in grants. In 2017, the City distributed $144,999.05 in community grants.

On July 10, there was a public hearing for a proposed development at the corner of 198 Street and 55A Avenue. You can read about the public hearing and the development proposal on a previous blog post. Council gave final reading to the rezoning bylaw for this proposal and approved its development permit.

View of proposed development from 198 Street. Select image to enlarge.

As I posted about yesterday, this was the last public council meeting until September.

July 24, 2017 Council Meeting Notes: Expense policy changed, corporate fitness discount program launched, and new radio network for our first responders approved

Last night was the last Langley City council meeting before the August break. Council’s next public meeting will be on September 11, 2017. In previous years, this last meeting is usually jam-packed, but this was not the case last night. Even so, there were some important policies that were adopted at the meeting.

The first policy to be adopted was to change the Travel & Expense Policy for the City. This policy was updated to increase the allowable expenses that council members can incur on an annual basis without requiring the approval of the mayor. The mayor may now incur up to $7,000 per year in expense while other council members can now incur up to $5,000 per year in allowed expenses.

This change will allow council members to attend one or two conferences a year such as the Lower Mainland Local Government Association Conference, Union of BC Municipalities Conference, or Federation of Canadian Municipality Conference.

The second change was to increase the per diem amount by $5 to $75 for both council and City staff when travelling out of town. The per diem covers meals and other incidental costs. This change was made to reflect the increase in the cost of meals.

As always, any incurred expenses are publicly reported. You can review last year’s council remuneration and expenses on a previous blog post.

To help promote a happy, health community, and support active lifestyles, Langley City council adopted a new Corporate Fitness Membership Program. This program will grant a 25% discount for three, six, or one year admission packages to our community’s recreation facilities. A business or non-profit agency must have at least three employees who are willing to commit to an admission package to be eligible for the program. Those employees will then receive the discount.

As I noted a few weeks ago, Langley City Fire-Rescue Service in joining the E-Comm radio network. As the Langley RCMP and BC Ambulance Service use the same radio network, this will facilitate better inter-agency communication during emergency events. This radio network will also have better coverage than our current radio network. Council gave final reading to the bylaw to authorize our Fire-Rescue Service to join the radio network.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting about community grants, and a rezoning plus development permit that was approved.