Trying to merge onto Cleveland Ave to leave Squamish? Repeat this mantra: Keep calm and show super-human patience. Keep calm and show super-human patience. With only one way in and out of the area, traffic jams in Downtown have become invitations to meditation exercises, but a second entrance to downtown is still years away.
If you don’t believe in bureaucratic red tape, you might think that by 2030—yes, in just five years and three months—a shiny new bridge over the Mamquam Blind Channel will magically connect Pemberton Ave to Clark Drive and Highway 99. But if you’re a realist, you know that short of a miracle, any groundbreaking will certainly take more than five years.
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Though the plans call for a bridge by 2030, these are ‘ambitious targets,’ says Brent McMurtry, the District of Squamish transportation manager. A second connection to downtown is also included in the wide-ranging Transportation Master Plan, recently unveiled by the District.
“We are currently working towards a new entrance to Downtown Squamish. We have this project in our budget and our financial plan. We are working towards construction by 2030,” McMurty said.
The project is in the design stage, after which several permissions and permits are required from agencies like DFO. It will likely follow the trajectory of a pedestrian bridge over the Mamquam Blind Channel, which is slowly inching towards reality. “We’re working towards the second entrance project. The pedestrian bridge being constructed now is an example of the required complex permitting and the delays that can be caused. There are a lot of challenges with the permits,” he said.
The second entrance is a District of Squamish project, a project notified in the DCC bylaw. Development Cost Charges are funds the district collects from developers for infrastructure projects such as the Second Downtown Entrance. McMurty emphasized that the second entrance is an important project for the district. “It’s something we have identified as a priority, and 2030 sounds like it’s a long way away, but that is an ambitious timeline.”
The future Pemberton Bridge will connect the Valleycliffe, Hospital Hill and Crumpit Woods neighbourhoods and Squamish Hospital to downtown and provide additional emergency access to and from downtown Squamish without an at-grade rail crossing. In 2021, District of Squamish told the Squamish Reporter it was working towards securing funding for the bridge.
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Don R Patrick says
Returned to Squamish in 1972 and the news of a south entrance to remove the one-way town stigma was just around the corner, how many years ago was that? In that era, the downtown was on death watch … over the future years there was more talk of the uptown which was the Industrial Park later to become the Business Park and then further north as the Garibaldi Mall. We can all dream but land cost with a little assistance from density will be the deciding factor. Waiting for the senior governments is a thing of the past … the lineup for assistance is overwhelming. I predict that those residents over on the former Weldwood land will be crossing the new walking bridge with a Mobile Scooter towing a small utility trailer. Dream on.
M. Halfnight says
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I have a working theory on how and when the District will start working on the second entrance to Downtown Squamish. It’s a horrid idea, but it’s the only thing that will push government officials to work on this project: A frightful, horrific accident in Downtown Squamish.
There, I said it.
You may call me sadistic, but only if there is a horrible accident involving several people and by some nasty quirk of fate, you have a CN train dragging itself through downtown, and healthcare workers are trapped because they can’t take patients out of downtown. Well, you get the picture.
Maybe then, we will be outraged enough to scream and shriek so loudly that Mayor Hurford and his Green buddies on council will withdraw their faces from their rear ends, look up and get the bureaucrats to start working on a second entrance to Downtown Squamish. If this scenario sounds fiendish to you, then you are naive. In fact, this is how government works. Something’s got to give, and innocent lives sacrificed at the altar of bureaucracy usually works. Sounds outlandish, no ? This has happened before in this town. A woman died and a 4-way stop was set up at Government Road and Depot. A child was dragged by a driver at the 4-way stop on Second Ave and DOS officials started murmuring about improving the intersection.
Let me say this plainly: Death pushes bureaucrats to action. Mark my words: Someone will have to sacrifice their life for all of us to see work on the second entrance. Until then, we can keep flipping birds and honking, throwing our hands up in despair, and cursing and swearing while life goes on happily at the District of Squamish.
Stephen Mcbride says
Why will it take forever for this project? Pretty simple. The attitude of the council and all the Nimby’s that support them. Project would take years and the current council is so against some blue collar dirty construction workers being around town and rubbing shoulders with the up-tight white collar workers.