A Saturday morning traffic jam getting onto the Lions Gate Bridge with the North Shore mountains beckoning is bad enough. But a traffic jam on the road leading to the mountains can make the frustration unbearable.
BC Parks is looking at options to alleviate the overcapacity problems at Mount Seymour Provincial Park, where a sunny Saturday can mean hours spent trying to access the park or Mt. Seymour ski resort.
The park is simply drawing more people than it used to, said Dylan Eyers, section head for the Lower Mainland for BC Parks.
鈥淩eally it鈥檚 the explosion in winter backcountry use that we鈥檙e seeing 鈥� winter hiking, snowshoeing and to some degree, backcountry skiing 鈥� and people are just loving it up there, which is awesome,鈥� Eyers said. 鈥淏ut back in the day, when these parks were originally planned for and developed, we didn鈥檛 really anticipate there being upwards of 1,000 folks showing up just to go snowshoeing.鈥�
With a majority of park users showing up at 9:30 a.m., BC Parks is looking into actions other parks have taken to deal with capacity clog-ups. Among them: increasing shuttle service, creating a reservation system, charging for vehicle access, building more parking lots, building a gondola to the base, and setting up a ride-share program.
BC Parks hired a contractor to survey park visitors on where they are coming from, how they get to the top of the mountain, how much time they spend, what activities they come to Seymour to do, and to gather their feedback on possible solutions.
All of the ideas on paper, however, are considered too preliminary to get into the specifics or talk about capital costs, Eyers said.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not there yet. 鈥� Those are questions this process will hopefully inform public opinion on,鈥� he said.
The survey was welcomed by parks advocate and blogger Steve Jones, who has lobbied for better access to Seymour and Cypress.
鈥淚t鈥檚 great to see they鈥檙e investing some time to take a closer look at the issue. Certainly, parking capacity is kind of fixed up there but over the years, the population has been growing and winter recreation is becoming more popular, and the resort has been doing some upgrades, which has increased demand as well,鈥� he said.
The best solutions are probably the cheapest and simplest, Jones suggested.
鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of a tricky problem because most of the demand is limited to a few small peak periods. If it was always busy, you might say build a parkade but it wouldn鈥檛 make sense to do that given it鈥檚 really a handful of days each year when you run into most of the problems.鈥�
Jones said his top priority would be opening (the road gate to) the park earlier on weekdays to allow keeners to go for a morning snowshoe or hike before they go to work.
鈥淭he first thing you do if you have any kind of a location that is too busy is look at extending the hours,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here are hundreds of us who are interested in getting to the park just a little bit earlier and then getting out of the way when it鈥檚 busy. It鈥檚 kind of a shame to have these two mountain parks up there where it鈥檚 very challenging for people to catch the sunrise.鈥�
Jones said he also finds it 鈥渞emarkable鈥� that neither Cypress nor Seymour have public transit access.
Jones also suggested the province expedite the planning and development of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park in Coquitlam to help take some pressure off of Seymour.
The survey period is now closed. Eyers said the results will be analyzed and presented to park users at an open house later in the spring for more feedback, allowing the province to start studying what鈥檚 feasible and can be tackled in the next year or two.
This story originally appeared in the
