City Council's version of a Port Bypass road still on the drawing board

Prince Rupert City Council still has some ambitious plans
for development of Wantage Road

A plan that first gained some traction six years ago back in the days of planning for hyper-econonic growth is still high on the minds of some at Prince Rupert City Council with Councillor Blair Mirau making note of the city's plans from 2007 to develop a Fairview container port bypass road.

A route which was proposed at the time to reduce the growing level of truck traffic through the downtown area and run along Wantage Road and then on towards the Fairview Cemetery before hooking up to the DP World facility on the waterfront.

The renewed interest in the topic came up as part of the review on Monday night of the city's plans for forward movement on the new Official Community Plan.

"There's a couple of things that I didn't see explicitly mentioned was around the McBride Street entryway node ... basically designating that you know where this vast majority of our rubber tire traffic comes in  is through McBride and there's basically three intersections right there that are your primary welcome to town, that require some very specific intervention for improvement ... the other piece was around the Fairview Bypass road" -- Councillor Blair Mirau

The original bypass road plan from the city's 
2007 version of the Official Community Plan

Towards the Fairview plans Mr. Mirau observed:

"That one I think is incredibly important cause not only does it open up a whole new world of light industrial development opportunities,  but it would finally allow, I think in the long term, for the city to take control of Second Avenue downtown if we could have that bypass become the new highway's designation"

The city's contract planner for its OCP work Rob Buchan, took the McBride Street  entry themes up for further advisement to report back on, noting that the Vision 2030 document was now the guiding land use strategy.  

But he did have some guidance as to how the Fairview Bypass road plans had been revised and with additions made, noting how it was part of the Land Use mapping in the Draft version of the 2020 Official Community Plan.

"I can tell you that the Fairview Bypass Road is included in the Land Use Map and not only is included in the land use map, there's additional industrial development that's been added to that, so that there's more viability to that road being built. In that, if there's development there, the development can help pay for the road" -- Rob Buchan the city's contract planner on its OCP

Land use map from the Draft 2020 Official Community Plan

The timing of the reintroduction of what would be an expansive bypass road project is curious, what with the Prince Rupert Port Authority in the homestretch of work on the Fairview-Ridley Island connector road which is now at 75 percent complete.

That dedicated use roadway along the waterfront that will link the two industrial areas and for the most part remove much of the large volume of truck traffic currently travelling through the city's downtown core.

As Mr, Mirau and Mr. Buchan noted, the City still wants to develop the Wantage road in order to move forward with some industrial use for the old landfill site and areas adjoining the current version of the road that leads to the Civic Works yard.

 

But with the Port and its partners expanding its own industrial land footprint on Ridley Island, and a still rather unsubscribed logistics park of its own at Watson Island, it's not clear how much demand in the short or mid term would make for clients for any civic land development along Wantage Road.

The more recent history of the Wantage Road plans came as part of the planning of 2014 for then highly anticipated LNG growth in the region, the growth of industrial land for the road west of the Lester Centre something that City Manager Robert Long first brought up for council during the final months of the Jack Mussallem Mayoralty. 

A theme of potential development that has been an occasional part of the council narrative ever since.

May 2018 -- A bounty of bypass options

April 2018 -- The Mayor's Hays 2.0 Update ... there's a bit of woe, some blame to show and a dream to sew ... But mostly we need some money to flow!

May 29017 -- Downtown paving project has Councillor Cunningham reinforcing need for container truck bypass road

June 2016 -- Horizon North work camp parking changes proposal to head to public notification

March 2016 -- Prince Rupert traffic issues and Container truck bypass options discussed during Monday's Council session

October 2015 -- City of Prince Rupert moving forward with leasing plans with Horizon North for property along Wantage Road

July 2015 -- City to wait until late Summer, or Fall to deliver public update on LNG Go Plan

December 2014 -- School District on different page than City when it comes to Wantage Road Work Camp

November 2014 -- Council pushes ahead with Work Camp plans for Wantage Road, despite rough reception at Public Hearing

November 2014 -- Public Hearing on Wantage Road zoning proposal set for Monday evening

November 2014 -- Wantage Road area targeted by Council as a Major Project staging area

With the proposal still under consideration, hopefully will come with it a bit more discussion as to whether such a road all the way out to the Fairview site  is still required and what kind of timeline for development would be best.

Considering some of the past concerns over the city's development plans for the land along Wantage, a wider footprint of development may find some opposition and require some extensive consultation  from those living in the vicinity, as has been seen from past proposals.

In the end, the construction of a bypass road as currently envisioned may also have an unintended consequence of redirecting visiting tourist and ferry bound traffic away from the downtown core, something that the struggling commercial class may wish to discuss further.

The discussion on land use between Mr. Mirau and Mr. Buchan can be reviewed from the City's Video Archive at the 56 minute mark.

For more notes on Monday's Council Session see our Council Timeline feature, a wider overview of past Council Discussion themes is available from our archive page here.