(Image credit: Mel Rothenburger)

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Back alleys could become people places if we gave them a chance

Dec 3, 2022 | 8:01 AM

THE BACK ALLEYS of Kamloops aren’t anywhere you want to spend a lot of time in. They’re stark, grungy places with busted up concrete, graffiti vandalism everywhere, utility pipes and meters sticking out of the ground and cars and pickups shoe-horned into each available nook and corner.

One imagines muggers leaping out from behind every dumpster. Indeed, when we think of back alleys we think of prostitutes, drug dealers, petty thieves, bootleggers and all manner of shifty characters.

The alleys are, quite literally, the backside of Kamloops, the rear end of commerce, and the general attitude towards them is that they’re best left hidden. In their current state, that’s probably not a bad way of looking at it.

Attempts have been made in recent years to put lipstick on them in the form of murals and they’ve helped, but they’re just that — lipstick. The murals haven’t always deterred the graffiti vandals, and a project that began a couple of years ago to turn dumpsters into artistic canvasses appears to have stalled. In short, back alleys get no respect.

They are an unappreciated and potentially valuable and vibrant piece of urban real estate if only we’d rethink them.

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They could be so much more than places for delivery trucks and garbage. Alleys have long been part of urban design, originally intended to be public spaces, alive with shops, restaurants, bars and offices, plus access to upstairs housing. In many parts of Europe, they still are.

In these parts, though, they’ve always been viewed as they are now — a necessary but more or less shunned part of the urban landscape. In residential areas, where we stopped building alleys a long time ago, they were built for garbage trucks, vans and access to offstreet parking for homes without driveways.

New subdivisions now create residential lots back to back, with access only from the front. That’s a whole other discussion. Meanwhile, downtown, alleys continue to serve as places to put business leftovers.

But what if we totally changed the way we think about them? The alleys on the north side of Victoria Street would be hard to do much with other than keep clean, but at least three blocks worth of alleys between Victoria and Seymour could be made into something special.

I was struck by a Kamloops and District Chamber of Commerce project to look at alleyways. It studied pedestrian and vehicular use of the alleys and mused about how to make them “more relevant to the needs of locals and enhance the cultural identity of the destination like arts, sports, cultural events, science and local markets.”

It’s unclear where the chamber is going with this and how it intends to get there but the intentions are good.

Back alleys, or “laneways” as some prefer to call them, could be the next big urban development if the city’s leadership has the vision. It’s no small job but it can be done. It takes more than a coat of paint.

What to do with the automobiles that currently use the alleys for parking? Replacement space will be needed but it’s long been accepted that the downtown core could use 200 more spaces anyway. In the main three blocks of downtown alleyways I’m referring to, probably 40 cars park in there.

We could move those vehicles into more suitable parking spaces. Utility connections would have to be moved, and the asphalt needs to be replaced, preferably with brick pavers.

A bigger challenge than all of those is how to turn all the back doors into front doors and even section off stores and offices to front-face onto the alleys. And, of course, there are the dumpsters — creative alternatives would need to be found. Sure, we’re talking about a few million dollars, hopefully jointly funded by government and the businesses that would benefit but it could transform the downtown shopping core.

I recently spent a lot of time in back alleys in Europe, not because I was particularly drawn to them but because they’re an integral part of so many cities there. People shop and do business in them, and pedestrians and delivery vehicles cohabit without difficulty. They’re full of boutique stores, coffee shops and offices.

They’re green, walkable places where people can get away from the hustle and noise of main streets and relax and even sit. Because alleys are narrow, they’re more intimate and friendly — OK, not the way we do alleys here but if they’re done right.

They could be places in which people connect with the city in a new way. Busy alleyways are healthy alleyways, unlike what we have now. For those who believe Kamloops has to focus on densification, back alleys are a source for development space that doesn’t depend on knocking down older buildings or spreading up and out into the highlands.

Seattle estimates it could increase its retail space downtown by 50 per cent if it made better use of its alleys.

That would be ambitious for here but it shows how some councils are embracing the idea. Edmonton and Calgary have alley renewal programs; so does Toronto, so do other cities. We could do it here too.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops, former TNRD director and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.