The wooden boardwalk traversed by thousands of tourists and commuters on the east side of Lonsdale Quay is set to be torn up and replaced as the existing one is rotting and chipping away.
"Facilities has had it on their agenda for a while and so has the Quay," said Barbara Pearce, the city's manager of special projects. "There are a few spots that are really deteriorating and the Quay was doing some short-term measures to address those."
The boardwalk is owned by the Lonsdale Quay but the city has had a right-of-way on the property since the Quay was built for Expo 86. Under a cost-sharing agreement between the two, the Quay is responsible for day-today maintenance and replacement costs are split. It is expected to cost $30,000 to bring in and install new pressure-treated fir. The work is scheduled to start in late August or early September, after the rush of tourists has abated, and last for five days.
But the east deck should have been replaced a decade ago if you ask local safety advocate Richard Kinar.
Kinar has been lobbying the city to do something about the deck since the spring.
"It's very difficult for people to navigate that walkway right now in high-heeled shoes. It's very difficult for people that are physically impaired either visually or in a wheelchair. ... There are signs up all over the place that say it's slippery when wet. It's Vancouver.
It's almost always slippery," he said, noting it is the main pedestrian route to the SeaBus. "There should never be a walkway surface that's slippery when wet."
The city did take Kinar's concerns to heart and sent an engineer down to the boardwalk to have a closer look but that wasn't the impetus to get the project started, Pearce said.
"(We) determined it wasn't an immediate safety hazard. It needed to be replaced but it was not something that required the closure of the decking," Pearce said.
The city set aside money for its share of the replacement during the 2013 budget process.
Kinar is also calling for the Quay to redo the brick walkway immediately north of the boardwalk - a piece of land where the city has no right-of-way. "It's in really bad repair. That one is particularly troublesome because it is so uneven and sagging," he said.
But the deck and the brick area's safety are judged by the same standards and the brick walkway is safe according to the Quay's management.
"All areas of the market are kept safe by our procedures and we have ongoing repair of any aspect of the property that is deemed unsafe, whether it's walls, roof, flooring, seating - anything of that matter," said Taylor Mathiesen, the Quay's director of operations. "We don't have any imminent plans for complete replacement of that brick area at this time."
The city and its residents should also be on guard for safety and liability issues while the city is looking to negotiate more public-private partnerships as part of the central waterfront, Spirit Trail and Shipyards redesign projects, Kinar said.
"When it comes to these high-profile public areas, there should be a third party that's doing an audit on them. I think the city has let down the residents of North Vancouver by not keeping up with that decking. It's dangerous," he said. "If we don't get the language right, then we as taxpayers are going to be liable as we are right now for a very, very expensive resurfacing of the Lonsdale Quay."
Mathiesen said he expects the Quay and the city will continue to work together.
"We will be involved in making any changes necessary as we continue to partner for the betterment of the Lower Lonsdale area," he said. "I'll assume we'll continue to work on the same model where we maintain anything on our property."
