Burnaby Lake Regional Park
It’s funny, I never realised how isolated Burnaby Lake Regional Park is if you don’t drive. Unlike Deer Lake Park, which is smack dab in a residential area, and sports numerous pedestrian entrances, Burnaby Lake is bound in the following ways:
- to the south, by Highway 1;
- to the west, by Kensington Avenue and a big sports centre complete with tennis courts, soccer / cricket / etc fields;
- to the north, a railway — and north of that, a bunch of commercial properties, then Winston St;
- to the east (ish), loosely by a bunch of other green spaces. All one big forest back in the day, of course, but now this area is split up between Robert Burnaby Park, the Cariboo Heights Conservation Area, and the Brunette River Conservation Area. These parts are better connected to the nearby residential neighbourhoods of Burnaby and New Westminster via the Central Valley Greenway, though said greenway does have to duck under Highway 1 and cross Cariboo Road before it joins up with Burnaby Lake proper.
But! Earlier this year they completed a pedestrian / cycling / accessible overpass between the western part of Burnaby Lake and the residential neighbourhood called Buckingham Heights (according to Google Maps), providing a long-overdue connection between Deer Lake and Burnaby Lake, and making the highway not such a loud barrier for the people living near it. It’s nice! We went over it for the first time today.
Incidentally, I wonder if wildlife will use it for travel between the two big lakes. It’s possible!
I also wonder if there might be more pedestrian overpasses coming in the future. My first thought was “oh yeah, they should totally do it!” but… where, exactly? Building one of these things is not easy, and would absolutely disrupt the conservation areas to the east no matter how much good it would do in the long run. There are sidewalks and (painted) bike lanes on the Cariboo Road overpass, so that’s something. Further west you’ve got Kensington, as friendly as a big road connecting to the highway can get. Further west there’s Douglas Road, with only sidewalks but it carries much less traffic. So I don’t know if there’s much demand for more, especially since outside of the park there’s not really anywhere to walk to.
Anyhoo. We had considered doing the entire 10km circuit around Burnaby Lake, but instead opted for the two most photogenic bits: Cariboo Dam to Piper Spit, and Still Creek to the overpass. The sky was overcast and we’re still in that weird in-between times when a lot of birds are still hiding but the fall migrants still haven’t arrived.
Well, except shorebirds. We got Dowitchers and Yellowlegs at Piper Spit!
The photos
