Lions Bay Parking Agreement
By way of a Trails Update, here is a summary of the situation at Lions
Bay, where the escalating parking conflict of a few years ago was
resolved by Pat Harrison working out an FMCBC agreement with the West
Vancouver School Board in 2006 - allowing hikers to use the Lions Bay
Elementary gravel parking lot on weekends and holidays.
[ Prior to this, there had been several attempts over an 18 year period
to find a solution or build a new parking lot, without success.]
The trailhead parking area at the Yellow Gate on Sunset Drive in Lions
Bay is currently a bit restricted due to recent water main construction,
which has left three deep pits at the gate: at least one car has driven
into these so far. There is about 35m of angle parking at this point,
about enough for 12 vehicles, and of course using the 'Resident
Parking' is to be avoided, as towed cars end up in North Vancouver.
There are a few roadside spots throughout Lions Bay Village which hikers
have traditionally used, but again, care should be taken, as one concern
is that poorly parked vehicles may block the fire truck or ambulance on
the narrow streets.
The main overflow parking, i.e. if you arrive too late to get a spot
close to the trailhead, is at the Lions Bay Elementary School, 250
Bayview Road. On weekends and holidays, which is when crowds tend to
arrive, the street parking in front of the school is available, and this
will take about ten cars. The large gravel parking lot is adjacent to
the grass sports field at the school: as you drive up Bayview there are
two gates just before the school: one is locked, one is always left
open: the gravel parking lot is here, down a short ramp and there is
capacity for 45 cars. The agreement that we have is for weekends and
holidays only, and we note that there is now a "No Overnight Parking"
sign. This is West Vancouver School Board property, and so far we have
had no problem with litter, etc.
One concern expressed by hikers when Pat set this up, was that it
entailed a walk up the streets to the trailhead... and so Pat and the
Trails Committee extended an existing trail system so that it now leads
from the North end of the school sports field all the way up through the
forest to the gravel road 200m beyond the trailhead, joining the
road just below the water treatment plant. This takes about 35 minutes,
as against 15 minutes by road. On the return trip, we advise using the
road as the forest trail is not all downhill, takes a bit of time, can
be a bit confusing in the dark, and the downhill walk back to the school
by road takes around 12 minutes.
The distance from the school to the trailhead is about 650m by road,
roughly 1km through the forest.
We have not had any complaints in the two years that the parking
agreement and the 'forest' trail have been in use, so hopefully things
will go well again this year. I did a hike of the trail last weekend to
take photographs and pick up litter (there was none), and I was pleased
to see that an unknown trail crew has recently cleared any fallen
trees. Pat and I will likely try to meet with the Lions Bay Mayor this
spring to see what the outlook is for filling in the pits at the
trailhead: keep an eye out for them, they are covered in scraps of
plywood.
Alex Wallace,
for Trails Committee. May 16 2008.
