Squamish has a lot going for it — a friendly community, access to incredible outdoors, unique stores and restaurants, and elite sports — but it is still a growing town that doesn't have everything.
The Squamish Chief polled 697 readers and asked the question: What does Squamish need most that it doesn't already have?
We wanted to capture things that aren’t as obvious as affordable housing and childcare or regional transit so we focussed on items we don’t have, not those that need to improve.
The boat launch received the most votes, at close to 27%.
Squamish does not currently have a public boat launch.
There is a boat launch at the Squamish Yacht Club, at the east end of Vancouver Street, but it is on private land.
According to local boaters, it is also in disrepair and needs upgrades.
This survey result matches results from a District survey conducted last year.
The District's Marine Access Survey, showed 30% of community users were willing to help foot the bill for a new or improved launch and 50% of businesses were willing to chip in money for the cause.
There is a local Facebook group dedicated to the cause: Squamish needs a boat launch.
The municipality has been studying the issue.
The Squamish Chief's poll ran from 4/6/2023 to 4/14/2023. Of the 697 votes, we can determine that 345 are from within the community.
The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult Squamish Chief readers that are located in Squamish. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 3.65%, 19 times out of 20.
The Squamish Chief uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
