Adding bollards, concrete planter boxes and other design elements to current and future public realm areas in Vancouver are among some of the recommendations outlined in a report released Thursday that aim to prevent another vehicle-ramming attack in the city.
Eleven people were killed and dozens injured April 26 when a man drove an SUV into a crowd of people on a food truck-lined street in south Vancouver, as the Lapu Lapu Day festival was coming to a close.
The day after the attack, Mayor Ken Sim ordered a review of outdoor special event planning and safety measures to understand whether city staff or police missed any details in the lead-up to the popular Filipino festival.
A preliminary report released in May concluded the planning was sound, with no threats identified. The final report released Thursday reiterated that conclusion, but added eight recommendations aimed at preventing another vehicle-ramming attack.
Three of the recommendations relate to the public realm. In other words, public places where people gather and could be a target for what the report described as “hostile vehicle” attacks.
Robson Square
Lisa Parker, the city’s director of public space and street use, said Robson Square in the 800-block of Robson Street is an example of where the city has already implemented measures to deter such attacks.
“On the Hornby [Street] side, there was planters and bollards placed there in very critical ways,” she said at a technical briefing prior to a news conference at city hall led by Sim.
“And then on the Howe [Street] side, there's removable bollards to allow entry in and out of there. So those are examples of where we've already done that. We have looked at some other spaces where we might want to go in and fill in some additional spaces where a car could get up over a curb.”
Parker said a number of plazas around the city are in design and will be built soon.
“So we're going back and looking through those in particular to see if we need any additional measures to be put in there — maybe shifting a planter that could have the heaviness to protect from a vehicle entry point, or the addition of bollards,” she said.
'High-risk spaces'
Paul Storer, the city's director of transportation, said cities continue to struggle with what level of safety and security needs to be included “with everything else that needs to happen in the public space.”
“We've seen — unfortunately — hostile vehicle attacks around the world in all sorts of types of spaces, including in bike lanes, sidewalks and plazas,” Storer said.
“So the framework we develop would allow us to assess different types of public spaces and then with the capital — if it's allocated in the next capital plan — we would start looking at how we retrofit the most high-risk spaces.”
At the news conference, the mayor said the recommendations should be implemented immediately, noting the need to keep Vancouverites and visitors safe in public places.
He again described the Lapu Lapu Day tragedy as the “darkest day in the city’s history.”
“I do have full confidence in the fact that the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Police Department will be able to successfully implement these recommendations without delay,” said Sim, who was joined by Police Chief Steve Rai at the news conference.
At the same time, the mayor acknowledged that tragedies can be unpredictable, no matter what level of planning and intelligence is involved.
“Unfortunately, no city can eliminate all risk,” he said. “There's not a single city on the planet that can eliminate all risk all the time. But what we can do is plan smarter, act faster, and build our public spaces with these learnings in mind.”
'Hostile vehicle mitigation measures'
The five other recommendations are:
• Update the city’s special event policy to reinforce public safety “as a core objective and clarify operational supports.”
• Standardize early safety planning and “integrated access control protocols” to guide the entry and exit of attendees, vendors and others.
• Develop guidelines on the use of “hostile vehicle mitigation measures” for outdoor special event planning.
• Explore expanding training, equipment, infrastructure and tools for event organizers and staff.
• Advocate provincially and federally for standardized event safety legislation and resources, and for the development of a provincial incident response management guide.
No dump trucks — which have been used as barriers at other events in the city — or heavily armed officers with rifles were present at the Lapu Lapu Day festival. The previous year’s festival, which operated without any such measures, had no issues related to public safety.
In May, the VPD announced it spent $410,000 to buy 16 mobile vehicle barriers.
The barriers, which weigh 700 pounds each and measure two feet wide, were used on Italian Day, along with 65 others rented by police. The VPD also deployed more officers to the popular event on Commercial Drive.
The measures resulted in a 55 per cent increase in costs over the previous year — from $128,207 in 2024 to $199,013 this year.
“The deployment resourcing for Italian Day, a one-day event, is described here not to set the expectation that this level of [hostile vehicle mitigation] measures will be the standard going forward,” the report said.
“Rather, the discussion is intended to contextualize the resource allocation that needs to be considered given the number of special events that annually take place in Vancouver.”
Kai-Ji Adam Lo, a 30-year-old East Vancouver resident, has been charged with several counts of second-degree murder in connection with the Lapu Lapu Day tragedy. Lo is still before the courts.
