Blanshard street becomes a six lane huge street from just past Memorial Arena through to Cloverdale, a distance of about 1.75 km. The road has a large median in the centre of it.
Do we really need to have six lanes of traffic? I have rarely seen the need on this road for all of the lanes to be used.
The right of way of the road is in the range of 20 to 40 metres wide, over the whole distance, this is over 13 acres of land.
If the right of way was reduced to two lanes in either direction with no more than a concrete barrier as a median, the road way could be reduced to about 15 metres in width. This opens up a possible linear park that is about 15 metres wide.
This linear park could dedicate 3 metres to a bike path, but this still leaves on average another 12 metres of park area - about 40 feet.
There are existing green spaces that could be incorporated into the park. On the east side of Blanshard south of Tolmie there is a 1.2 acres of existing green space. The linear park would connect nicely to the existing Topaz parkand the grounds of the former SJ Willis School. At the corner of Cloverdale and Blanshard there is a 1/3 of an acre green space that would be connected as well.
All in all the region would gain a new effective park are of about 8 acres of land when one integrates the small green spaces. You would also develop a new and helpful bike commuting route into the city. As it currently stands, the galloping goose is more or less at its limit for commuter bike traffic.
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