IDEA Series - Schubert - A really long park?

This article, in its really long form, is a Case Study in how I think we should be doing Urban Planning. From building on the successes of existing Active Transit, to doing the opposite of Tax Exemptions (way at the bottom), to improving stormwater and flood infrastructure, to boosting economic productivity.

Schubert is a cool 'Drive'!! It runs North to South along the North Thompson River - all the way from Downtown to Westmount. Very clever people decided to run the 'Rivers Trail' along the drive, giving over the riverfront for public enjoyment. They built a Multi-Use Path many years back along its length to be enjoyed as a walking and biking recreation trail. And it is very well used!

Named after Catherine Schubert, who as an Overlander, walked from Winnipeg, via Edmonton, to Kamloops - Jasper to Kamloops through the winter, pregnant to some accounts - is some of Kamloops best recreational walking today.

 Marketed as both 'commuter infrastructure' and recreation, its success likely makes it the single best active transportation infrastructure in the City, and now decades on, also completely undersized.

As it is right now, Schubert needs to be up for renewal. The roadway and multi-use path are pitted and pot-holed. Tree roots have usurped a large amount of the pavement surface. The meagre 3m multi-use pathway itself also does not cater to the volume of people who actually recreate along Schubert, let alone commute. As an active cyclist who maintains a pace of about 15kmph+ fairly easily, dodging dogs, families and walkers with headphones walking 4 abreast on the multi-use-path (rightfully enjoying the path as they should) I always ride the road. Thankfully there is almost no car traffic on Schubert, and so conflicts are minimal (especially compared to other places like MacKenzie Ave, 1st Ave, Victoria Street and Tranquille).

Informal 'parking' areas have created themselves along the corridor which are often poorly organized and create zones of dusty gravel and dead grass. While many ditches along car corridors in Aberdeen, along which no one would ever walk or smell the flowers, get beautiful bedding plants - this place already well utilized by walkers and cyclists, gets dust.

I think that we should rethink Schubert as a long, beautiful park space - which primarily transports people recreating, second for people utilizing active transportation, and only facilitates car movement third. Given the existing low traffic volumes I do not think this is a big ask - and it is well in line with improving waterfronts in most cities. 

The City of Kamloops has echoed similar priorities in their Official Community Plan Bylaws for nearly three decades, yet the opposite has consistently happened. I think that Schubert is low hanging fruit to make something really awesome.

                                                 

As Schubert inches closer to needing maintenance and resurfacing, lets think about what that investment, and its next 30 years could look like. I think that we should consider Schubert to be more like the Seawall, or Victoria's Dallas Road, when considering its maintenance and planning ongoing. 

Some facts:

The Right of Way is between 11m and 30m in some places; sometimes even wider like at Schubert Park Lookout. That is more than enough space for a 3m alternating one-way car lane, 3m bike lane, and 4m walking path at its narrowest. In most places there is room in addition for formal parallel sitting areas, parking areas, wider sections of walking path, bedding plants, street trees, and second travel lanes. 

There is further opportunities as well at Arthur Hatton, Schubert Lookout and Moose Park - to incorporate Schubert into a single, continuous "park space" with plazas, or larger amenities in these locations like playgrounds, fitness equipment (like at Mac Island), skateparks, art installations, etc.

An example of a project like this is Atlanta's Beltline, pictured below:

I would argue that we only need to maintain private vehicle access as a one-lane road in a southern direction. That allows each block combined with Fortune to be a right turn to right turn situation for drivers if you overshoot your objective. In this way we serve to provide continued easy access for cars on all streets perpendicular to Schubert while freeing up space on the right of way. Perhaps a little inconvenient at times but overall not a real problem. 

Even if making Schubert one-way for cars, or even just one-way in sections, was too controversial - many cities can prioritize non-car traffic through simple paint on the road, or alternating single lane traffic (like we do on bridges in the Shuswap or Lillooet). Moral of the story, a continuous 20m+ wide park space is well within geometrical reality if we follow our own City produced transport hierarchy.

With at least 9-20m of Right of Way for Plant Beds, Tree Plantings, Park Benches, enhanced park spaces, perhaps even some canoe and kayak docks? Parking spaces for visitors and residents can actually be improved on by creating properly lineated optimal spaces. Sometime parallel, sometimes angled. These can be controlled through residential permits and others paid if demand starts to exceed supply (like the Seawall or Dallas Drive). Bareland Stratas like Orchards Walk and Sun Rivers already do this, as we do Downtown as well. Managing parking is not re-inventing the wheel, but we do need lineated stalls to be able to do it.

I would keep aside a 3m continuous bike lane, intended for fast moving bikes - and a 4m+ recreational pedestrian path intended for walkers, dogs and slow cyclists/kids. This would encourage this link as a proper transportation corridor on bikes, rather than just an amble for the recreationalist. Some motorists complain that cyclists use the road when the multi-use path is right there. But I can tell you that an extremely bumpy and busy 3m right of way with kids and dogs and people with headphones in, is a dangerous place to cycle, and so you don't. 

One of the challenges on the North Shore is a lack of Stormwater infrastructure. A lack of sewers mean that the North Shore is restricted in its developable land area due to an inability to cope with storm run off. The entire length of Schubert, with much less pavement, would be able to use many strategies through plantings and swales to retain its runoff - contributing positively to the robustness of water infrastructure on the North Shore. (You can check out my even crazier idea to Bury Fortune Drive to further improve flood and storm water management in North Kamloops)

Combined with a proper Pedestrian Bridge from Riverside Park to Henry Grube, the subject of a different post  - this radiates our park system out from Downtown in a compelling way, with continuous park spaces and traffic free active transportation corridors going for many kilometers all across our waterfront. A win for livability. (Extending a Park up 1st Ave, another potential unique link). All of this could be included with a dramatic redevelopment at Henry Grube as illustrated in the Riverside Park to Henry Grube post.

As is typical with my posts, funding does not have to be straight out of the parks budget, with no cost recovery mechanisms. I try not to think completely Pie-In-The-Sky but have actual cost-recovery mechanisms and/or capital contribution avenues. 

Financing this park improvement has multiple opportunities:

I believe that park spaces like this are enhanced with little bits of commercial. The types of neat little shops and corner stores that become the community hubs of an area. These could be contained in small purpose built micro-units rented to vendors by parks, spaces for mobile operations like book-mobiles, foodtrucks or mobile retail. 

An example of this type of micro retail is the subject of my post; What is Wrong with Word on the Water?, a micro bookstore on a Canal in Kings Cross. 

Further the Cities OCP actually already mentions in the existing neighborhood plan to somewhat support increased amenities along the North Shore waterfront. The OCP does want those amenities at Henry Grube, but as SD73 owns and operates that site, it is about as equally as (un)likely to occur as along Schubert.

For interest, some micro-retail examples in Nanaimo, Amiens (FR), and Narita (JP) pictured:

Creatively - opening the home-based business bylaw along this corridor to accept restaurant, cafe, retail spaces would open the door for a little spot to get coffee, ice cream, or eggs. Or home-based art galleries or spaces, micro book-stores, and all sorts of options. Places like The Pond in Barnhartvale. Or the Lowlands Project Space, a micro gallery in Edmonton (which often features Kamloops alumna Ryland Fortie)

Or Little Brick in Riverdale, Edmonton - CBC Story - Riverdale Heritage Home to be Cafe, General Store and Picnic Ground

Pictured below is The Colombian Cafe and other little shops in Glenora, Edmonton. When putting in new protected bike lanes, the City choose 134st here to add them - which feeds the cafes, which feed the cyclists. Its a symbiotic investment. As traffic speeds and frequency dropped in this area, it has become more quiet and safe for kids, seniors and families to roam the neighborhood - which now have ice cream, coffee and other amenities to locally patron without driving out of the neighborhood. These types of neighbourhood third places also have become viable as the increase in pedestrian and bike traffic from the corridor ran people on foot and pedal past their door - something the car-arterial of Jasper Ave previously had not.

I do not think the control is required, but, I would put a max footprint on a businesses. Something like 1000 Sq. Ft. That way the business is at a scale consistent with the neighborhood. Its not about dropping a Costco on a residential street, its about a little art gallery mixed into a beautiful neighborhood as an amenity to those residents. These types of small businesses are for the people who already are near them. You can read more on this here: How Stripmalls kill local busineesses 

and how we can return with low traffic, high amenity space neighbourhoods

In the same node - as the area has already received up-zoning to allow for duplexes and fourplexes. I think that along Schubert allowance for 2-3 story apartment buildings would be in keeping, allowing more citizens to take advantage of the views, the park, the river, and live directly on the cities best alternative transportation corridor. I many areas of Kamloops, NIMBYs reject new development as the transportation for higher densities don't exist yet, and in most cases they are right - despite the fact that land-use leads transportation investments, not the other way around. However in the Schubert equation, the infrastructure already exists, and has the potential to get much much better! In addition, residents already have access to decent transit along Fortune.

To double down on this - create a limited number of 'zoning opportunities' could allow for 5 larger multi-family projects along the corridor to create little centers of activity, without overwhelming the neighborhood as a whole. Rather than up-zone the whole strip, which would dramatically change the neighbourhood - the first 5 projects to apply for building permits will get the up-zoning rubber stamped right away. Following projects will not be allowed to follow the precedent without proving significant community contributions to make it worth it - contributions like park amenities. 

Many areas of the North Shore benefit from a 10 year property tax exemption for multi-family redevelopment. Schubert should do the opposite. DCCs, or Development Cost Charges which are charged to developers at the time of application could be doubled, or even tripled for Schubert sites, with no Tax Exemption. This is luxury riverfront living we are talking about. The impact to the neighbourhood can be paid by the people in these apartments by creating neighbourhood amenities, directly paying for better and more park infrastructure. In addition, or alternatively, non-view apartments, on low levels, with no view, could be reserved for affordable housing of various kinds; workforce housing, family housing for single mothers, etc.

By controlling and making predictable the up-zoning;  In this way we encourage construction, units and deliverables rather than speculation and property flipping. The private realm improves the public amenity and the private realm is improved by the improved public amenity. Further, if paid parking and residential permits end up being necessary to manage the parking demand, these too provide budget for clean teams, bylaw offices, parks staff, etc.

Promoting this type of infill and intensification uses a scalpel rather than a hammer to leverage the park investment. Creating this park for the benefit of a few dozen single-family homeowners does not benefit our community as much as it could, and does nothing to fund the improvements. Assuming average rates of taxation and value - just a handful of these projects would generate taxes over $2m+ a year, more than enough to pay, maintain and justify the investment in the park space. Further - Commercial properties pay 5x the tax rate as residential ones, so micro businesses will generate both rent, if on City property, or increased taxation if one private property. If no market for businesses really exist here, as it might not, nothing will happen anyways. As a person who has and does own the type of businesses that might invest in this area, I wouldn't be keen to jump right into it yet.

One more point on public safety, micro retail creates supervision of park spaces that is different to residences and at different times of the day. Rental agreements to businesses like food trucks can include addendums like litter management around their place of business, improving the area for everyone.

Waterfronts are too valuable to be used as low-traffic car places. They should be better used as parks and amenities for their communities. 

In conclusion, waterfront parks are not just for big cities either. Consider Burton-on-the-Water, pop. 3200.