Vancouver City Council Full Term Report Card

Lucy Maloney (OneCity)

Highlights: Motions for: More funding for Granville safety improvements (passed), Halloween block parties (defeated by ABC), priority snow clearing on transit routes (defeated by ABC), no right turn on red at our most dangerous intersections (delayed by ABC), saving Car Free Day (passed; co-sponsored with Clr Orr), and most important of all, the City’s Vision Zero Safe Mobility Plan refresh (passed but weakened by ABC). She voted on the side of road safety 100% of the time.

Lowlights: None to speak of. 

Summary: Lucy had big shoes to fill when she won the 2022 by-election to replace OneCity predecessor Christine Boyle, and she fully delivered. Her most important accomplishment was getting the City to update its dated Vision Zero Action Plan, resulting in a truly game-changing roadmap to making our streets safer. A road safety champion both on and off council.

Sean Orr (COPE)

Highlights: Motions for collecting better speed data at fatal crashes, reducing headlight glare in modern cars, saving Car Free Day (with Clr Maloney) and introducing a low income transit pass; all of which passed unanimously. Voted on the side of road safety 100% of the time.

Lowlights: Nothing comes to mind. 

Summary: Sean joined council in the same 2022 by-election as Lucy and immediately became a champion for the cause. He was willing to collaborate with us on anything we wanted to discuss, was extremely thoughtful in his approach, brought forward some fantastic motions, and was actually able to get all of them passed. 

Pete Fry (Green Party)

Highlights: Motions for reducing speed on non-arterials to 30km/h and better road paint maintenance, both of which passed. With Clr Boyle, raised a motion to reduce the speed on Cornwall to 30km/h (weakened to 40km/h by ABC). Voted the right way on virtually every motion and amendment. 
Lowlights: Two of his “negative” votes were on rolling back the Water St pedestrian zone to Sundays only in 2025, and not extending the Granville pedestrian zone in 2026. Although his concerns were more budgetary than anti-pedestrian, we would like more ambition in creating car free spaces. 

Summary: Pete has been a strong Vision Zero ally. He’s almost always on the right side of the issue, though with few motions he led himself; that said, his motion to reduce speeds on residential roads to 30km/h came to fruition after years of work on his behalf and is one of council’s most significant actions this term. 

Rebecca Bligh (Vote Vancouver)

Highlights: Was the only ABC councillor to vote against removing the Beach Avenue bike lane. Good voting record after leaving ABC. 

Lowlights: Some unfortunate votes during her time with ABC, including voting for “more study” instead of intersection safety cameras. 

Summary:  It was a tale of two terms for Rebecca, who mostly stayed in line with ABC for 2 years (Beach Ave being a notable exception) but then started voting the right way once she left. It’s unfortunate that in 4 years she didn’t actually bring forward a single road-safety-relevant motion. It never seemed like she felt strongly about this one way or the other. 

Lisa Dominato (ABC)

Highlights: Co-sponsored two motions with ABC colleagues: increasing the number of leading pedestrian intervals, and expanding the school active travel program. Both passed. 

Lowlights: Along with the rest of ABC, voted against Broadway bike lanes, intersection safety cameras, Halloween block parties, Cornwall 30km/h speed reduction, speed reduction on arterials as part of the City’s Vision Zero Safe Mobility Plan; and voted for rolling back Water St pedestrianization, trying to tear out Beach Ave bike lane, and Ken Sim’s “zero means zero” budget which cut many transportation staff and services and rolled back work on previous motions such as bus lane implementation. 

Summary:  Although not the lowest score, Lisa has probably been the biggest disappointment all term. From personal conversations with her, we know that deep down she cares about this issue more than her other ABC colleagues. It’s a shame she could never find the courage to show it. 

Sarah Kirby-Yung (ABC)

Highlights: Spearheaded Water St pedestrianization in 2024 (but then voted to roll it back in 2025); and championed the e-scooter pilot program (but neglected to actually make streets safe for scooters). Has been a strong ally for transit and supporter of for bus lanes. 

Lowlights: Proposed the motion to return Beach Avenue back to 2-way traffic. Was seen driving her vehicle while attending council meetings on more than one occasion. Otherwise, it’s going to get pretty repetitive to keep listing everything ABC voted as a block against, so please read Clr Dominato’s update above.

Summary: While Sarah’s passion for pedestrianizing Water Street and introducing e-scooters was great, the execution was lacking. Water Street lasted one (very successful!) summer before it was rolled back to once a week only, and it’s hard to square introducing e-scooters while at the same time voting against safe places to ride them. Her support for transit is great. Everything else, not so much.

Lenny Zhou (ABC)

Highlights: Co-sponsored a motion for more leading pedestrian intervals, and for a scramble crossing at Granville and Robson. 

Lowlights: See Clr Dominato’s update. 

Summary:  When in 4 years, Lenny’s one big idea for road safety was a single gimmicky pedestrian scramble crossing at an intersection with already very low vehicle volume, it kind of tells you everything you need to know. He’s been on the wrong side of almost every issue. 

Mike Klassen (ABC)

Highlights: Passed a motion to have the City plan improvements to Kent Avenue bikeway – but then passed a budget that made it impossible to fund any improvements. 

Lowlights: See Clr Dominato’s update. In addition, led the way to block the speed limit reduction on Cornwall Ave. 

Summary:  In 4 years, Mike had one good idea and then immediately made sure the City couldn’t accomplish it. We even invited him out to check up on Kent Ave with us for our Kent Ave Clean-up this past spring, but we never got a reply. He has a skill at speaking at length about this issue while saying nothing, then voting against road safety almost every time. 

Peter Meiszner (ABC)

Highlights: Co-sponsored a motion to expand the school active travel program.

Lowlights: See Clr Dominato’s update. In addition, he had the most egregious amendment of the term when he stripped out the provision in the new VZ Plan that would have lowered speeds on select high-pedestrian arterials, such as Main Street, Denman, and Commercial Drive. He wrongly (in ignorance or in malice we still don’t know) claimed on the council floor that the speed reductions would apply to streets like “Boundary and Knight” and refused to correct his error when pressed. Speed is the #1 factor in fatal collisions and arterials are the #1 location of fatal collisions.

Summary: Peter is someone we had hope for at the start of the term. He seemed receptive and caring. Unfortunately, the cynicism of politics wore him down, and he turned into a councillor who would rather put ideology ahead of people’s lives.

Ken Sim (ABC)

Highlights: Extended the Granville St pedestrian zone to Labour Day, albeit not being able to account for the $5 million price tag.

Lowlights: On top of all the other ABC votes mentioned previously, also passed a “zero means zero” budget which slashed transportation staff and services. 

Summary: For the supposed leader of our city, it’s jarring to find Sim near the bottom of this list. His constant rhetoric about “public safety” did not match his actions, as time and time again he voted against common sense road safety motions. Maybe one of his 11 AI agents can help explain why that’s bad. During his 4 years in office, Vancouver saw more pedestrian deaths than at any point in the past 2 decades, which is as far back as we could find numbers. He cares about giving more money to the police; he doesn’t care about your safety. 

Brian Montague (ABC)

Highlights: Moved to Kelowna, skipped a lot of meetings, decided not to run for re-election.

Lowlights: Proposed the amendment that cancelled Broadway active transport lanes, proposed the amendment for “more study” instead of intersection safety cameras, opposed 30km/h on Cornwall, raised a motion to turn traffic monitoring cameras into police surveillance tools, doesn’t live in Vancouver, proposed the amendment to defer the Halloween street party motion, *deep breath*, advocated for tearing out Beach Ave bike lane, voted for the austerity budget, voted against increased road safety funding, voted to remove the “safe speeds” element of the Vision Zero Action Plan, called us “pathetic and disgusting” on twitter for objecting to his policy decisions.

Summary: For a guy who can’t go 10 minutes without bragging that he used to be a VPD traffic crash investigator, it’s pretty ironic that he’s been the worst councillor on road safety all term, proposing not a single relevant motion, and leading the charge to defeat some of the best ones that other councillors raised. His temper, condescension, and arrogance won’t be missed.