This City Relied on an Unstable Development Pattern for Generations—But Now, There’s Hope
City hall in Langley, BC. (Source: Wikimedia Commons/Leoboudv.)
Like many cities throughout North America, Langley, British Columbia, has relied on a “build everything at once” development pattern for much of its growth. As a result, the city is struggling to keep up with needed roads, schools, and other community infrastructure. But luckily for Langley, the city is filled with people who care about their place and want to inspire change. One of those people, James Hansen, has begun shifting the way Langley thinks about its development in a simple way: through conversation.
“It would only take a few small, small steps to really make things so much better,” said Hansen, who leads the Local Conversation group Strong Towns Langley.
By utilizing Microsoft teams to host open discussions and making YouTube videos, Hansen has created a local community that’s being recognized as a thoughtful voice in Langley. Most of the group’s outreach is focused on ideas for creating a people-centered city, versus a town that’s built toward prioritizing cars. Because of this, news reporters have approached the group, asking for community opinions on what should be done about current city struggles.
As one example, around 6,000 new housing units have been approved within Langley, and are planned to rest along 200th Street. But this multi-lane corridor functions as a stroad, mixing places people want to go to with fast-driving vehicles. It’s a design that’s been proven time and time again to be dangerous, causing fatal collisions for people who walk and drive.
Ideally, Hansen says plans would be made to slow traffic down by changing the design of 200th Street. However, completely remodeling a street is no small ordeal, and could take many years of debate and planning. So, Strong Towns Langley has proposed improving the design instead through an incremental approach: by addressing what small things could be changed right now to make it better.
One suggestion was to shift the housing to be at least a block away from 200th street, so that residents weren’t stepping outside directly onto a highway. Much to the group's excitement, this is already being considered in some areas. Another suggestion, which expands past 200th street to many other roads and intersections throughout the city, is to remove slip lanes.
A graphic that Strong Towns Langley created to explain what slip lanes are.
Slip lanes exist to keep cars moving fast at all times. They create a hazardous environment for both drivers and people using active transportation, especially if the slip lane is in a neighborhood area. For Langley, Hansen points out that a lot of local neighborhoods are easy to walk through, but it’s dangerous for people to cross the street when there is a slip lane. To help explain this to community members, Strong Towns Langley created a video and conducted a survey asking residents how they felt about this car-prioritized design:
Hansen and those in the Strong Towns Langley group are on a continuous experiment to discover what their neighbors relate to, and how to help them better understand the whys of their city experience. It is a crucial moment for their advocacy work, as Langley has experienced numerous exciting changes recently. The city has adapted its zoning laws to allow for multiple types of housing, residents are welcoming a SkyTrain and discussing bus opportunities, and the population is growing.
It’s hard to shift the development conversation alone. Most Strong Towns advocates are volunteers, sharing only their spare time as they balance life, family, and work.
But there is hope for change, because, as Hansen says, “the more you do advocacy, the more you get things out, suddenly people just start coming to you.”
To spark change in your town, you just need curiosity—and the gumption to start a conversation with your neighbors. If you’re feeling inspired, then why not start your own Local Conversation today, or find one near you?
Seairra Jones serves as the Lead Story Producer for Strong Towns. In the past, she's worked as a freelance journalist and videographer for a number of different organizations. She currently resides between small-town Illinois and the rural Midwest with her husband, where they help manage a family homestead. When Seairra isn’t focusing on how to make our towns stronger, you can find her outside working on the farm, writing fictional tales in a coffee shop, or reading in a hammock.