Q&A: Pitt Meadows, Port Coquitlam eyeing Bus Rapid Transit, Mayor MacDonald says

Pitt Meadows is planning for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along Lougheed Highway, serving as an anchor for future development along the transit corridor. 

In a recent wide-ranging interview with The Ridge, Pitt Meadows Mayor Nicole MacDonald said an extension from Maple Ridge to Port Coquitlam may be on the table once the first three BRT routes are implemented in the Lower Mainland. 

BRT is a key project the city is eyeing to shift transit habits in the community while serving north Lougheed, an area Pitt Meadows has eyed for redevelopment since the mid-1980s, MacDonald said.

Halfway through her first term as mayor, MacDonald also discussed housing, flood mitigation efforts and the ongoing Harris Road grade separation project. 

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.

The Ridge: We’re two years into your term. What would you say are some of you and your council’s biggest achievements so far?

MacDonald: From the beginning, this council looked to create a strategic vision that had our priorities. That way, when we’re making decisions, they’re within that. Public safety has been key for us, having a really healthy corporate pride. We have great city staff, great retention. We want to have an active community, healthy for youth, families, seniors. So we’re really prioritizing that. We did a parks, rec and culture master plan. 

We’ve done a lot of foundational work so that we can make informed, educated decisions that engage with the public. Obviously we want to focus on fiscal responsibility and prudence. We know it’s an incredibly difficult time for families with inflation, and for a great period of time, mortgage rates. I’m extremely proud of the City of Pitt Meadows. We have the second lowest taxes in the Metro Vancouver area to Port Coquitlam. 

(The city put forward a budget that included an $412 increase in taxes — $215 in property taxes and $197 in utilities — at council meetings on Nov. 25 and 26. The average single family home in Pitt Meadows would be expected to pay $6,243.47 in taxes and utilities. Average single family home owners in Port Coquitlam pay just under $6,100. The budget will be discussed again on Dec. 9 and 10.) 

But it’s about balancing. It’s not good to be the lowest if you have huge gaps in your service. And we’ve noticed some of those gaps. One was fire and rescue. So over the last term, we’ve made sure we are aligned with the rest of the region. So we have 24/7 coverage now. But it still makes for hard choices. For example, we know a lot of residents would love a pool. We did extensive work on that, and that would have jumped our tax rate up significantly. 

What would you say are the biggest challenges you’ve had in the last couple of years? Was it the pool? 

(In February, Pitt Meadows city council unanimously voted against adding a new pool to the city, leaving the 80-year-old Harris Road Park outdoor pool as the only aquatic facility in town. An indoor pool at Pitt Meadows Athletic Park, the preferred option by residents, would have cost up to $60 million.)

I think that is a good one because we all have wants, and when you dig into it, some may want to spend money on that. But again, we’re hearing the burden of taxes and costs. And one thing with a pool, I’ve learned that it’s the second most expensive public building to run next to a hospital. We have minimal operational costs to our current aquatics, which is extremely limited, admittedly. So that would come right to the taxpayer. That’s a hard one because I grew up with aquatics. 

But that leads to the next point and what our biggest challenge is: our tax base. We’re only a population of 20,000. Seventy per cent of [our land] is agriculture, which is a lot of our identity. It’s to be celebrated and we need to support food security and sustainability, but we don’t generate the same taxes. What that means, when I talk about hurdles and obstacles, is we’re not experiencing the growth that other municipalities are. 

So even if you go to Port Coquitlam, Burnaby, or Surrey, that growth feeds who shares the costs. With that growth, you can afford things like pools. 

I read a recent interim housing report that said Pitt Meadows may need about 1,500 new units by 2026, and 5,000 by 2041. What’s the city’s strategy to address that potential growth in the years to come?

We do have one key and exciting opportunity, our North Lougheed Area Plan. That’s what would be our last big development. But we need to do it right. There’s currently lots of conversation with the Katzie First Nation. We need to evaluate the needs of the community. For example, residential, retail, commercial, education. But it’s a great opportunity to get that growth, as well as feed the needs of the community. Being on Lougheed Highway for a commuter route and transit route, it’s got great potential.

How do you, as a city that’s a relatively small community, add the new provincial housing legislation and other housing, while keeping Pitt Meadows, Pitt Meadows to residents who may be scared adding housing will change the makeup of the city?

It’s extremely challenging. The first thing we did was be up to date on the legislation. It’s a broad brush stroke across the province. We’re at the forefront, I’d say, of some of our colleagues in different communities seeing the effects on Pitt Meadows and trying to inform the community. The biggest impact I’d say right away was the workload to staff. 

I feel confident where we are with the legislation. How will it work? I think that’s a little to be determined. I think it’s unknown. And I think the impacts will potentially be unsettling for some of the community when we’re seeing mixed densification in some of our older neighbourhoods — whereas when you do your own OCP, you can read that through. We’re not arguing the need for housing, diverse housing or affordable housing. We’re proud of our upcoming affordable housing complex. 

But my biggest concern is the infrastructure implications. Do we have the services for development? Schools? Roads? Parking? We already have a major choke point and safety concerns with an underpass and main artery that’s blocked. How are we going to make the community livable when we’ve got this patchwork of development put on to us rather than our own planners doing it.

You mentioned the grade separation, which I want to talk about as well. There were updates in the summer, and an update in October about an active transportation grant. What’s the latest on that project? 

There’s not too much since the grant. We’re looking to get to the table again. Within the past few days, we now know the new Minister of Transportation, so we’re eager to work with the minister. But to clearly state, this isn’t a provincial mandate or project. Pitt Meadows doesn’t have jurisdiction over it, and that’s what makes it extremely challenging. We’re not the lead. We’re incredibly affected by the impact. The jurisdiction is federal — federal trade. It’s the supply chain for the nation and international [trade]. We’ve had great allies with the province, they stepped up with the active transportation grant. It’s a hard time federally. I’ll say British Columbia is not getting the attention we need or deserve from the federal government for these impacts. It’s hurting small communities like Pitt Meadows. 

There was a lot of back and forth on overpass designs, underpass designs. When can residents expect an answer on that decision? 

The leads said they are exploring, solely, an overpass at this time. We’re aligned with the Katzie First Nation and they share our concerns with safety, livability, accessibility as well. We’ve collectively said we’re open to exploring the overpass. The argument from the leads is it’s less costly. There’s more information that needs to come. They’re only at a 10 per cent preliminary design for an overpass. So we reserve the right to think that the gap will shrink and get closer to what an underpass would be. 

Have they given cost estimates? 

Not off the top of my fingers. The round figures for an underpass, and this is where it’s so far out of the reach for Pitt Meadows, is approximately $200 million. The original ask from the ports when the project was starting to falter was $50 million. 

The issue for us is we are already financially strapped for the responsibilities we have. It’s the same if we were asked to pay for a high school. That’s provincial. We have our responsibilities, whether it’s parks, roads, fire department. They’re not coming in to pay that for us. The thing about a municipal budget is we can’t carry a deficit. 

It’s our biggest hurdle. I lose sleep over it. Because I’m right there with people, the blockage affects our community. 

How much would the city be OK with paying for a project like that? 

That would be to be determined. Not $50 million, that would be incredibly burdensome. And we’d have to go to what’s called the ascent to the elector in order to do that. We’ve got to get a vote process. We do have smaller amounts we could put towards. Again, it’s not a decision I can make unilaterally. It would be council and we’d have to be fully informed about the project, what it’s going towards and see where the community is on that. 

Blue sky scenario, what would active transportation on that overpass or underpass look like? 

The community engagement when the underpass work was being done had some great multi-use pathways, divided underneath the road traffic. I was stopped the other day and my daughter in the passenger seat took a picture. The number of pedestrians stopped in poor weather — kids, families with strollers, seniors. When you’re waiting 20 minutes for the train and it’s pouring rain, or you’re trying to walk to the bus, get your groceries, then people don’t [do that]. That also means more people in cars potentially. 

Where does getting more active transportation, or alternative forms of transportation, rank on your list of things to do? 

In 2023, we did an active transportation plan for the city. Lots of those pieces have been put into place. We have an incredibly large development and industrial land in the south end, but it’s multi-use pathways that are accompanying that. We see a lot of connectivity through our trails, multi-use pathways, and dike system. There’s more work to do. We have a position that is actively pursuing grants. 

I was talking with [Maple Ridge] Mayor Ruimy a few weeks ago. We talked a lot about BRT. That’s one big thing they’re doing. What does Pitt Meadows need to do to shift transit perceptions here? 

All the mayors are part of the Mayor’s Council with TransLink. The goal is to work together, so that we can look at a stronger region. Unanimously, it’s believed that transit is an essential service for the region as we grow. It’s needed. We can’t have housing without transit, especially with the immigration rates that are coming into the Lower Mainland. We need to move people around and not have the car arteries that lead to congestion, as well as that impact for the environment. 

There is a BRT route from Haney in Maple Ridge, through PoCo, that just missed the top three. 

(TransLink prioritized three routes to implement BRT in the region last year: Metrotown to the North Shore, King George Boulevard and Langley to Haney Place.) 

So I think you’ll hear from Mayor [Brad] West and I in the future. Ultimately, we need more bus service. We need it more often, and we need more routes.

What would that plan be? An extension along Lougheed Highway? 

Correct. We were right there and just missed the top three. So that would be next. That’s where you see bus, rapid bus, and then BRT would be the next level. 

Do you know a date when that may happen? 

We’re excited that a cabinet has been put in place. We’ve just had a TransLink Mayor’s Council meeting today. Our chair and vice-char, with the support of the Mayor’s Council, we need to work on that. Because we got the priority plan. Now we need the investment and the dollars.

There’s a couple more points I want to bring up. In October, we had an atmospheric river. There’s obviously the ones in 2021 too. It’s impacting Hammond Road, Airport Way. I’m curious, what have you learned from those recent atmospheric rivers to try and prevent flooding in the future?

Flood protection and mitigation is paramount. Our community is largely in the flood plain, and bordered by three rivers. There’s a lot of work done in terms of pumps, trash racks, generators. We’re constantly looking at our ditch system. The issues with Airport and Hammond is they are naturally in low lying areas, so those ones will be your most flooded areas. What we’re concerned about is the vulnerability of our diking system and pumps. We were one of the few communities, a few years back, that got a grant and did an assessment of our dikes. It was $150 million for dikes… There are concerns all along the Fraser. We got the Alouette and the Pitt as well, so work can’t be done by small communities on their own. It has to have higher level government funding. 

A small tax base like us can’t do $200 million in dike work. But we’re evaluating. For example, one of the biggest obstacles is invasive species in our ditches. We’ve got a lot on the north, the rural and even the west and farmland. But the concern is when it’s in our drainage system. Like I said, we’re trying to keep water out at times, being in a flood plain. But then we’re also a farming community and one of our biggest challenges is climate impacts like atmospheric rivers, droughts in the summer and water accessibility for our farmers. All that results in greater costs. 

As a city, you’re in an interesting spot. We’ve talked a lot around having a low tax base. But it’s like you’re in a waiting game, waiting for support from other people. 

Relationships with higher levels of government matter. We’ve got a huge rail yard, rail lines, regional airport, huge diking needs. But we’ve got a robust core, active community, families that want activities and recreation. 

The last thing I want to ask would be: what are the biggest things on your to-do list in the remainder of your term?

I think you asked a good question earlier. With all those competing priorities, whether it’s climate or housing legislation, how do you preserve the small town, special feeling of Pitt Meadows? That’s one of the priorities. People here truly love living in this gem of a community. But when we’re getting all these pressures being in the urban, metro region, how do we preserve it? So much of the fabric of Pitt Meadows is the people. It’s a community. You walk into a grocery store and people say hi. People know each other. 

Really, it’s just continuing to move the needle forward on all the things so we don’t fall backwards. 

Public safety, obviously, we want to maintain police and fire. But public safety branches out to operations, dike protections. Advocating for a rail underpass — maintaining that livable, safe community. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story said Pitt Meadows announced a $412 increase in taxes at a council meeting on Nov. 25. As of Dec. 5. Pitt Meadows has not approved its 2025 budget yet. Budget deliberations will be discussed again later this month.)