Know-It-All: Why Are the Streets of Fraserhood So Lumpy?

If the PNE’s legendary wooden roller coaster isn’t giving you thrills anymore, may I suggest turning your car eastward off Main Street down East 19th Avenue? There, the highs and lows and twists and turns of the bumpiest roads in Vancouver are sure to get your adrenaline pumping and your heart pounding. And, like on a roller coaster, you may even find yourself screaming—oh, no, wait, that’s just the sound of your car’s undercarriage scraping against the aggressive concrete ridges of the streets.

Listen, I’m not trying to shame anybody about the quality of the tumultuous side streets found in that lumpy Bermuda Triangle between Mount Pleasant, Fraserhood and Riley Park. As Dame Judi Dench once said, “pobody’s nerfect.” It hardly seems fair to expect a road to be flawlessly flat when I can’t hang a picture straight on the wall, even with the help of a level, a frustrated spouse and tons of time because I didn’t bother to fact-check that Dame Judi Dench quote.

But on the other hand, should we really be going all “gentle parenting” with the people in charge of our traffic infrastructure? If a road intended for the operation of motor vehicles isn’t, technically speaking, “good” or “drivable,” should there perhaps be some consequences for the people who created that surface (e.g., taking away their screen time)?

Before we start throwing Vancouver’s civil engineers into time-out, however (or “quiet contemplation time with your calming glitter jar,” whatever you want to call it), it’s probably worth uncovering why the road is lumpy. As it turns out, it’s not just city staffers acting out for attention: the road was unfortunately built on top of a peat soil bog decades ago. The swamp was once teeming with wildlife, and was a place settlers liked to hunt for grouse—looks like your attempt at parking your Evo on these treacherous roads isn’t the only act of violence in the neighbourhood’s history.

Eventually, everyone agreed that the only thing in life more fun than shooting defenceless birds was the sport of real estate, and the bog was filled in with peat soil so building could begin.

Weirdly, a bunch of swamp goop and grouse carcasses doesn’t exactly make for a sturdy building base. Today, the roads and sidewalks here degrade at an accelerated rate because of the soil’s high water content and compressibility. The peat shrinks, compacts and settles as it dries out, causing the pavement to rise and crack above. Add to that the impact of recent extreme weather and the everyday stress of vehicles bombing through to get to Fraser Street for the block’s signature selection of guns and jerky, and you’ve got a recipe for some pretty dramatic damage.

While the city has recently repaved some of 19th Avenue and has plans to make over other nearby residential roads (they’ve even experimented with rubber sidewalks in the area, which can weather the ongoing terrain shifts), the fact is that street rehabilitation funds are limited. If we really want to see those roads improved, it may take a community-driven, grassroots effort to fundraise. Luckily for the residents of this concrete jungle, many of the houses are so aggressively tilted that neighbours can easily chat with each other about a possible game plan from their nearly touching balconies.