Vancouver parents disappointed car-free school street program won’t continue

Parents at a West End Vancouver school say they’re disappointed a city pilot project that made the street by Lord Roberts Elementary car-free won’t continue. This comes despite efforts from parent volunteers to keep it going.

Parent Advisory Committee Chair Lucy Maloney says the City of Vancouver worked with the elementary school to set up the “Comox Year Round School Street” project back in 2021.

The plan strived to create a 45-minute pick-up and drop-off zone every school day, the block from Bidwell to Cardero was car-free.

The pilot project ended that school year, and volunteers picked up the project to keep it going.

“This street was always super congested with traffic trying to up and down the street with a row of cars blocking and a row of cars blocking traffic,” Maloney said. “It was a real traffic nightmare and super dangerous any anyone outside a car.”

“The school community did everything they could to show how wonderful School Street is for our community and how great it would have been to run without volunteers.”

Maloney says the program ultimately came to an end because the program struggled to find volunteers to keep it going year-round.

The City of Vancouver’s manager of community transportation says the city looked into the possibility of bringing the program back earlier this year, speaking to people living in the affected area before making their decision.

“We heard some excitement for improving safe school active travel options … as well as we heard some concern about accessibility, the loss of access to that block, and parking loss,” Katherine Glowacz explained, noting there are seven multi-story buildings full of people living on the block.

Meanwhile, Chengyan Boon with Vision Zero Vancouver says cars shouldn’t be the priority.

“Listen to the children — the City Staff actually did this they went out and they surveyed the children, and all of them said they loved this project and they wanted it to continue,” said Boon.

A city report on the School Street Program suggests that 92 percent of students say they feel safer with the car-free pilot, and 74 per cent of parents want the program to continue.

“This fall we are planning to come back to both the school community and the adjacent residents to provide an update on the next steps,” Glowacz added.

Maloney tells CityNews that having a car-free street next to the school her feel more at ease.

“It was just magical,” she said. “You had kids playing games and practicing on their bikes and running up and down and playing tag.”

She says the City will be adding a two-way bike lane on the proposed car-free block next year but would prefer to see a more fulsome program like the one previously in place.