Safe Streets & Public Spaces for All

Everyone should feel safe in their city, but too many Vancouverites feel less safe after four years of ABC. Kids don’t feel safe riding a bike to school, women and gender-diverse folks don’t feel safe walking home at night, and seniors don’t feel safe getting to and from appointments.

OneCity will make our streets and public spaces feel safer, regardless of who you are, where you’re going, or how you get there. It involves three elements of safety: community safety, safe public spaces, and safe mobility.

Community Safety

OneCity will move to enact a Progressive Public Safety framework that works with all the available tools with the following principles:

• Housing First – OneCity will support people to get off the streets and into safe and appropriate housing so they can get jobs and re-integrate with their communities. Housing costs less than hospitals, jails, or shelters, and improves outcomes more than any other solution. 

• Send the Right Kinds of Help – Crisis Response, Community-Led (CRCL) teams, made up of social workers, community intervention staff, and support hubs, will handle the problems where police aren't required. That frees police to focus their resources on organized and major crimes and meets our neighbours where they’re at when they need help most.

• Integrate Restorative Justice – OneCity would support community-led restorative justice initiatives, including in partnership with other levels of government, which help communities heal when conflict or crime occurs and helps break the cycle of poverty and reduce re-offending.

• Better Life-Saving Support – We will follow an evidence-based, Four Pillars response to our drug poisoning emergency by expanding voluntary treatment and recovery programs, crisis response, and public education about substance use. We will support an increase of harm reduction services where they are needed, including overdose prevention sites and the connections to care they facilitate, through close collaboration with the regional health authority and community organizations; zoning, permitting, and facility approvals; and lease agreements of public property on favourable terms. We promise to ensure that neighbours and businesses are meaningfully engaged in the implementation of care, so that we can find new and creative solutions that will save lives without harming the neighbourhoods around them.

• Reduce Drug-Related Harms – We will provide additional grants to community organizations engaged in naloxone distribution, drug-checking services, and community outreach. We will advocate to other levels of government for additional mental health services, detox and patient-centred voluntary treatment, and prescribed pharmaceutical alternatives to the toxic street supply. 

• An Honest Look at Policing – OneCity will hold the Vancouver Police Department to the same standard as every other public service by ensuring that funding is transparently reviewed, accounted for, and effectively allocated. 

• Survivor Safety Is Public Safety – OneCity will create a Survivor Safety Program to protect survivors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) with low-barrier frontline services, and community-led roundtables to identify gaps and improve outcomes so no one falls through the cracks.

Safe Public Spaces

OneCity will provide clear rules, common sense regulations, and a compassionate approach to safety in public spaces.

• ReLight Vancouver – OneCity will make people feel safe getting home at night with well-lit streets, bus stops, parks, and pathways in every neighbourhood.

• Structured Safety Audit – OneCity will prioritize sightlines, adding mirrors on corners, and eliminating obstructed pathways so you can feel safe, seen, and sure of your surroundings.

• Dignified Design – OneCity will prohibit hostile architecture in public spaces and ensure bus stops don’t leave people out in the rain.

• Less Trash – OneCity will deliver reliable public garbage access, expand public recycling beyond downtown, and set a clear service standard so that you can easily dispose of trash and enjoy clean, accessible spaces citywide.

• Ban Smart Glasses in Public Spaces – OneCity will establish notification requirements for sensitive business classes, launch a voluntary “privacy first” certification, and update bylaws to ban wearable recording devices in pools, washrooms, and other public spaces. 

Safe Mobility

Vehicle crashes are the greatest source of preventable injury and death in Vancouver, and traffic-related fatalities have skyrocketed under ABC, who have taken no meaningful steps to improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists, seniors, and schoolchildren. We can change that.

• Build a Connected Walking and Cycling Network – OneCity will ensure that you can make your whole trip safely without a car, regardless of where you start and end. That means protected and connected paths, better signalling, and more choice for how you get from A to B.

• Prioritize Mobility for All – OneCity will direct initial investments to the areas furthest behind, and publish mobility data by neighbourhood so Vancouverites can see exactly where investment is going and where it isn't.

• Safe Speeds Plan – We'll reduce speed limits on busy shopping streets, school and park frontages, and high-injury corridors so that cars can stop before they hurt someone.

• Vision Zero Rapid Response Fund – OneCity will dedicate funding to proactively identify and immediately address street safety issues according to historical data and evidence.

• Charge and Ride Safe – We'll expand access to secure charging facilities for active transport, and eliminate the sale and rental of uncertified or modified e-bike batteries that cause preventable fires and injuries.

• Create a Vibrant West End Waterfront – OneCity will establish a practical path to deliver a comprehensive West End waterfront plan so we don’t have to choose between better parks and safe, sustainable transportation downtown.

What this means for you: the OneCity team will take every aspect of public safety seriously, not just policing. You should feel safe from the Downtown Eastside to Kerrisdale to Renfrew, from early morning to late at night. Whether you’re walking, biking, or driving, you should feel protected from preventable harm. Your city will use every available tool to address serious crime and disorder, so that you are better protected from organized and major crimes.