Coming off the Olympic high, many of us in the suburbs also want a piece of the big legacy pie. A lot of us fought the mad rush of traffic and navigated the road closures or caught the SkyTrain or the West Coast Express to make our way to Robson and Granville in Vancouver to capture the party during the 17 days of the Winter Games. We know that our own little downtowns will never represent the scale and buzz of a regular Vancouver downtown day, let alone the fever-pitch excitement during the Games, but we would still like to see spaces and streets close to home become a conduit for the communities to come together in a shared experience. The suburbs lack pedestrian-friendly outdoor spaces, which attract a large core of people to browse, shop, eat and sometimes just people-watch from a bench or a cafe. I work in downtown Abbotsford and for more two decades during my breaks at work, I have strolled up and down the streets. In past years, the area was kind of nondescript, many buildings were dilapidated and many businesses came and went. The crime rate rode its peaks and valleys and chased many people away. A small park nestled in the middle of the downtown became fraught with drug deals and synonymous with street people, and the downtown business people and city officials had their hands full addressing the perceptions and realities of the fears generated in the very people they wanted to draw to its core. It was only during events such as the berry festival, the Christmas tree lighting and the farmers’ market that downtown became alive. At these times, it attracted families with children and was seen as a safe place to enjoy. The events and the subsequent street closures did incur some wrath and frustration among commuters because of traffic being rerouted, but the events remained popular. In the last few years, though, the look, feel and the buzz of downtown have changed. There has been a conscious effort to turn it into a vibrant hub with new and attractive developments, merchants can have a thriving business and customers can have a relaxing browsing and shopping experience. There have been initiatives to hold family-oriented events at the park to draw the right crowds. New eateries have appeared. The look of the area is changing with newer buildings and facades and more multi-residential development. The movement toward revitalization hasn’t happened by accident. It is a part of a carefully thought out vision of the Abbotsford Downtown Business Association. Earlier this year, the city of Abbotsford approved the Essendene Public Realm Enhancement initiative, subject to funding from federal and provincial government partners. This project, six years in the planning, envisions Essendene to be a pedestrian-friendly main street with wider sidewalks, enhanced landscaping and street furniture which in turn will bring people traffic. For many of the merchants, economics is the driving force behind the push for a pedestrian-friendly main street. For others like me, it is the attraction of creating a unique area where we can casually come together as a community, as browsers and pedestrians on a routine basis and as revellers during special events. Here in Abbotsford, there is no reason why we can’t push for our own little Olympic legacy from the provincial and federal governments.
