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Updated: Richmond council keeps status quo for Steveston traffic

After the City of Richmond received fairly strong opposition from merchants to closing streets and reducing traffic in Steveston, council supported keeping the status quo for now.
Steveston
This city map shows how Bayview Street could become one way for summer, from No. 1 Road to Third Avenue. Screenshot

After the City of Richmond received fairly strong opposition from merchants to closing streets and reducing traffic in Steveston, council supported keeping the status quo for now.

While several councillors expressed their disappointment at the survey results, in the end, they decided to not shut down Moncton Street nor turn Bayview into a one-way street.

When Coun. Chak Au suggested closing Moncton as a pilot project in the summer, for example, on the weekend, Mayor Malcolm Brodie pointed out city staff have talked to merchants about how to get them back up and running as soon as possible and they didn’t support the street closures.

“(With closures) you’re saying to the merchants we don’t agree with you and we’re going to what we think is best,” Brodie said.

Moncton and Bayview streets were the subject of a survey about reducing traffic to allow for more physical distancing for pedestrians and cyclists because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The suggestion was to close three blocks of Moncton Street between No. 1 Road and Third Avenue as well as turn Bayview Street into a one-way street.

The city received 50 responses from business operators, a response rate of about 20 per cent. The largest number of responses came from businesses on Moncton Street.

The survey showed 66 per cent were opposed to closing Moncton Street, and, while 60 per cent were in favour of turning Bayview into a one-way, three out of the five businesses on the street opposed it.

Alexandra Road is considered another high-volume area because of the number of restaurants between Garden City Road and Hazelbridge Way, but at this point city staff felt there were enough setbacks to allow for expanded patios as well as retail and queuing space.

The potential road closure issue was on Monday’s committee meeting with Couns. Harold Steves and Au voting in opposition.