Sifton Lane residents miffed by lack of communication over Highway 5A multi-use path project

KAMLOOPS – Better communication is the lesson that’s been learned between some Kamloops residents and civic operations. Residents of Sifton Lane in Aberdeen found themselves concerned about the city’s latest active transportation and infrastructure project along Highway 5A.

Work on the multi-use path, which includes sewer main upgrades, began in September.

“Extremely disappointed,” said Joe Sullivan, who has lived in his house on Sifton Lane since 1999. “We’re stunned that this had been all put in place without any engagement from the city.”

According to Sullivan, the residents of Sifton Lane take a lot of pride in where they live and in the walking loop across from their homes.

“It’s the official Sifton Loop walking trail and it’s all been disrupted,” he told CFJC News. “You have a lot of concern – people who walk dogs here, how that’s going to work with the new multi-use path?” Sullivan continued.

“You can see behind me that was going to be the new grade of the path right alongside of the walking trail.”

The Highway 5A multi-use path is part of the city’s active transportation plan, says Matt Kachel, City of Kamloops infrastructure delivery divisional manager.

“The multi-use path is meant to create connection within the active transportation network with the goal of helping to get folks from the top of the city all the way to the bottom of the city, but without having to go on the highway,” Kachel explained.

The city has been working on this plan since 2022. However, Sullivan says Sifton residents were left in the dark when it came to the scope of the latest project.

“I found it out when they were knocking down the berm, which is the sound barrier that protects all of these Sifton Lane residents from Highway 5A noise,” said Sullivan. “[The berm] was being taken down and I think it was about three or four days in, the residents started understanding we’re losing our berm.”

Kachel, the city’s point person on the project, says a notification was sent out to affected properties but admits more could have been done to inform nearby residents.

“This came in the form of a letter from one of our design engineers, which didn’t have probably enough information for people to understand exactly what was going on,” said Kachel. “In retrospect, an open house would have been better where we could have had an open dialogue with the residents and they could have understood what we were doing and why, and then at that point, we could have heard the concern around the noise and then tried to do our best to mitigate it.”

When the city became aware of resident frustration, officials met with residents to address their concerns.

Sullivan says in less than 24 hours, 40 residents got together to speak with city officials.

“Everybody aired and voiced their concerns about the location and the losing of this berm and other issues that I don’t think the city realized how important this area was for dog walkers, the multi-use path coming in for bikes and the loss of the berm to the residents,” said Sullivan.

Because the project is not being built directly beside homeowner property lines, Kachel said the city didn’t think an open house was necessary.

“There might have been thought that it wasn’t going to be a great concern to people,” said Kachel. “But maybe just in the future, erring on the side of caution and doing a lot of communications around these from the start just to bring out those concerns so that we can address them”

After meeting with city officials, residents feel some of their concerns are being addressed. The multi-use path is being built on top of the berm that will be built up to its former height.

“Yes, it feels good. I mean, they listened and they rebuilt the berm back,” said Sullivan. “That is good. You know, we’re happy with that.”