Image Credit: File

By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: ‘Asphalt, beautiful hills, a beautiful view and a downtown that’s dying’

Aug 15, 2020 | 6:47 AM

‘IN KAMLOOPS, YOU GET IN YOUR CAR, you go to Chapters, there’s four acres of asphalt, then you get in your car and you drive to Overwaitea, because that’s two blocks down. There’s Burger King, A&W, the big box retailers, and so on, scattered all over the bloody place. Beautiful hills, a beautiful view, asphalt, independently built concrete buildings that aren’t connected in any way for pedestrians or public transit and a downtown that’s dying.”

That was how then-Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen saw Kamloops 20 years ago when he spent a night here during a trip on the Rocky Mountaineer. Though he and I got along well, I was cheesed off about it at the time.

I wonder what Philip Owen would think of Kamloops today. I’m pretty sure he’d appreciate the improvements. As I wrote last week, big ideas have come and gone, but some things have stuck.

As I was doing some research on another matter this week, I came across KamPlan 1974, the city’s very first official community plan. A year after the provincial government forced Kamloops, Valleyview, Brocklehurst, Dufferin, Dallas, Rayleigh, Westsyde and Heffley to amalgamate into one city, the new council was presented with its first blueprint, an attempt to lay out the new town’s future.

In 70 pages, it provides insights into the thinking of the day. The foreword cautions in an understatement that the new City council should be ready to “make minor modifications to the plan over time in response to Community review.”

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The document acknowledges a tough road ahead. “The overriding or primary issue lies in the fact that the community to date has developed as a series of uncoordinated responses to demands and needs of various sectors of the community. This has resulted in inefficiencies and conflict in the past, and has sown the seeds of future urban problems,” it states in reference to the divided nature of the city.

“The line between urban and rural, town and country has become blurred and to that extent both the structure of the community and the intended function of its various components has become confused and illegible.”

Much of the report attempts to sort out the fractured nature of services that came about due to the jigsaw nature of the previous jurisdictions.

One somewhat odd proposal in the plan was to set aside one or more areas of the city for rural or “country residential” development protected from urban encroachment. Properties would be a minimum of two acres. This special zone would receive minimal services including for road access, garbage, fire, police, and water and sewerage.

The concept never came about, though for a time semi-rural areas like Rayleigh and Heffley had lower tax rates in recognition of their lower level of services.

KamPlan 1974 proposed dividing the city into seven communities and 22 neighbourhoods, the latter centered around existing elementary schools.

Neighbourhood-centric planning has continued to receive lip service over the 46 years of KamPlan but commitment to it has been shaky.

Another interesting part of the report deals with the downtown core. “There exists almost unanimous dissatisfaction with the Kamloops CBD,” it says, resulting in shoppers deserting Victoria Street for shopping centres on the fringes.

The main problems — poor public transit and shortage of good parking.

In one Owen-like comment, it notes that Thompson Park and Woodwards (the latter now home to the B.C. Lottery Corp.), were “separated by four and one-half blocks of the heaviest traffic in the City, an area totally devoid of shade trees…. The CPR yards and mainline separate the CBD from the natural amenities of Riverside Park.”

What to do about it? Minimize conflict between pedestrians and vehicles. Make the downtown people friendly. “The beauty of Riverside Park should be extended south into the downtown as well as east to link with the newly developed Pioneer Park…. The downtown should be allowed, and in fact encouraged to become more active beyond normal office hours.”

As we know, the park area was, indeed, expanded between Riverside and Pioneer, though it remains disconnected from the downtown core.

I was surprised to be reminded that aspirations for a downtown pedestrian mall existed even back then, though in a different form. The plan proposed converting Second Avenue from Lansdowne to Victoria and from Victoria to Seymour into a full pedestrian mall, and likewise converting Victoria Street from First Avenue to Third Avenue into a “vehicular-pedestrian mall or a pedestrian way, by widening sidewalks in certain areas but maintaining two free lanes of traffic, left turns at First and Third and some parallel parking at mid-block.”

Indeed, the idea of parallel parking on Victoria Street hung on for several years.

Last week I mentioned the long-standing idea of doing something about the rail yards. In 1974, there was no suggestion of moving the tracks but the plan proposed a study on adding grade-separated crossings.

It also proposed a traffic bypass to Mission Flats, with no details on what that might look like. And, a new North Thompson bridge, which did become reality.

KamPlan 1974 wasn’t especially inspiring or ambitious but it did cautiously suggest some goals and confirmed that community plans are never set in stone. Considering the daunting challenges facing the new city, it pointed Kamloops in a direction that eventually overtook Mayor Owen’s negative first impression.

AROUND THE TOWN: I enjoyed making contact with Mark Jones this week as he passed through town. He’s the son of the late Walter Jones, who once had a daily talk show on CFJC radio in the ‘70s. Walter later moved to the Coast to carry on his broadcast career and Mark now makes his home in Chetwynd where he works at a radio station… St. Andrew’s on the Square continues to get along on its own, being run by the Kamloops Heritage Society without help from the City, but it does have several events planned to bring in some revenue — everything from Japanese cooking classes to the annual antique sale and appraisal day, a tool shop and swap and some Christmas-oriented events. For more information call Mel Formanski at 250-377-4232 or email standrewsonthesquare@shaw.ca. COVID-19 precautions will, of course, be in place.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.