Brush clearing along 4th Avenue Walkway, prelude to further geo tech investigation

The walkway between Third and Fourth West has been an active
work site in recent weeks, with brush clearing underway

Residents of the Fourth Avenue West  area and those pedestrians passing by below on Third Avenue West have been hearing quite a symphony coming from the the walkway and staircase area between the two streets.

For the last little while workers from Empire Tree have been conducing an extensive brush removal project clearing much of the way and scaling the slopes to the homes along Fourth West.

Hopefully a sign for those that have patiently waiting for word that the popular walkway to and from the downtown core will soon be reopened, that after a near one year closure which began in January of this year.

The topic of the walkway made for a short commentary for Councillor Nick Adey at Tuesday night's City Council Session, with the Councillor asking towards the status of reports that Council had been awaiting related to the topic and reviewing some of Council's attention to it in recent months.

"My third item goes back to a meeting probably a couple of months ago now where we asked about the infamous Fourth Avenue stairway. 

And I think at that point we were, a report had been received but it wasn't ready for dissemination and I think we were given the sense that sometime soon the results of that report would be shared. 

I'm just wondering whether they're ready to be shared yet"

Richard Pucci, the City's Director of Operations provided an update on the status of the report and some progress on the walkway itself.

"At this point we have cleared all of the debris, the community and residents up in that  area will have noticed and heard all of the activity. 

And  we have to go back in with the GeoTech and the structural engineer now to get back underneath for another quick look and we should have those back within the next couple of days.

So they wanted to just go back in and have another quick look and we will have our report finalized,

I have early reports but not finalized reports, we will have that soon"

The conversation to the topic can be reviewed from the city's video archive starting at the 58 minute mark

.

More notes from Tuesday's council session can be reviewed here.

Some background on the Fourth Avenue Walkway issue is available below:

September 1 -- Prince Rupert's Tale of Two Staircases 
May 24 -- Power of petition, attendance in gallery brings a second look at status of 4th Avenue walkway to downtown 
May 23 -- Petition Push calls for City to repair walkway/staircase between 4th Avenue West and 3rd West
May 5 -- Plans for Staircase pathway repairs not on immediate horizon for City Operations Department 

The walkway had also made for a short comment back on April 11th, that during the Council comment period at the end of the session.