Major improvements in cycling infrastructure, including a three-kilometre bike lane along Dallas Road, will flow from the Capital Regional District’s sewage-treatment project.
“It will be a spectacular waterfront amenity that I think Victoria deserves,” said Mayor Lisa Helps.
The project would include upgrades to the Clover Point pump station and installation of pipe along Dallas Road. The station, built in 1975 and owned by the CRD, is on public right of way but needs to be rezoned before work can take place.
Proposed improvements include:
• Public viewing plaza
• At least four new benches
• Facilities for bicycle maintenance and repair, bike racks, a water fountain and public washrooms, and a one-time payment of $75,000 for washroom maintenance
• Two grassy open spaces to the east and west of the plaza
• Pedestrian pathways connecting to the Ross Bay seawall
• Intersection improvements at Clover Point and Dallas Road
• Separated bike path from the pump station area to Dallas Road, and along Dallas Road to Ogden Point
Currently, sewage that flows through the Clover Point pump station is screened and discharged through the outfall there. Under the plan for sewage treatment, the sewage would be redirected to a new pipe running underground along Dallas Road to Ogden Point, then under the Victoria Harbour to a new treatment plant at McLoughlin Point.
The CRD is proposing a new three-metre-wide bike path be built over the pipe’s three-kilometre route from Clover Point.
Coun. Chris Coleman, council liaison to Fairfield/Gonzales, said a separated bike route “in one of the most picturesque places in the world” would be welcomed.
He said residents have suggested other “amenities,” such as electric-vehicle charging stations in one of the parking areas.
Helps, who chairs the CRD sewage committee, said the improvements are not considered amenities but part of the project itself. “This is ripping up the roads, anyway — or in this case, part of the park — so how does it get put back?” she said. “The principle is to put it back better than it was found.”
City staff have requested that fencing be installed along the new bike track as it passes the off-leash dog sections. As well, city staff said the CRD is willing to work with the city with the installation of new signs and furnishings such as benches and garbage cans.
Changes to the Clover Point pump station form and massing will not be visible from Dallas Road, staff said.
Marg Gardiner, president of the James Bay Neighbourhood Association, noted that her neighbourhood will bear much of the impact from the sewage works construction, but that the James Bay lands do not require rezoning.
The association has met with the sewage-treatment project team to express concerns about trenching for sewage pipe along Dallas Road between Cook Street and Camel Point, noise from drilling to lay the pipe under the harbour, and laying and assembly of that pipe along Niagara Street. Gardiner said prevailing winds mean James Bay residents will be on the receiving end of any emissions from the new plant.
Helps said the expectation is that there will be no ongoing negative impact on James Bay once the plant is operating, and that neighbourhoods cannot expect amenities to compensate for construction disruption.
“There will be construction disruption to James Bay, to Fairfield, to Esquimalt, to residents across the region as the pipe goes out to Saanich, but the moment that governments start giving amenity for construction disruption, we’d all go out of business pretty quickly,” Helps said.
