Get on with Gateway
Letter writer Graham Pfister tells the editor of the Delta Optimist that the province should get on with DeltaPort expansion and Gateway as soon as possible:Delta's mayor and GVRD chair, Lois Jackson, takes the opposite view. She wants to stifle growth by preventing expansion and growth at Delta Port and the infrastructure that will be needed to support it.
1 Comments:
We must say no to Gateway project
Apr 05 2007
Editor, The News:
We lose migrating birds, thousands of trees, acres from Burns Bog, farmlands, clean air and the Orca population that migrates in the Georgia basin, wages, and more to the Gateway project.
They are all lost forever and replaced with increased traffic congestion, an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and toxic pollutants funneling up the Fraser Valley, and an increase in taxes to pay for the more than $7 billion towards another fiasco.
If you are still mad about the fast ferry boondoggle, then say no to the Gateway plan.
Building rail yards for the Delta Port Expansion, building the South Fraser Perimeter Road and adding 1,000 acres of fill to build an island will not be necessary when Prince Rupert, a natural deep sea port, will be taking port traffic in 2008.
The Alex Fraser Bridge, built to combat congestion, is worse now than before it was built and was congested within nine months instead of the seven years taxpayers were promised.
The Gateway project benefits the Vancouver Port Authority, and rail and shipping companies – many owned by foreign investors and politicians whose companies choose to support it – and it is in their best interest to increase traffic to reap more toll money for more projects.
If the Gateway projects go ahead, the debt to future taxpayers will be staggering. Our asthma and cancer statistics will increase due to air quality from increased congestion and sprawling car-dependent development, and there will be a loss of agricultural lands and wildlife.
If a tiny island like England can stay green with ancient monuments because of a competent transit system, surely we can do the same instead of creating a land of multiple highways, big-box stores blocking out the mountains, dirty air, polluted and deficient water basins, tracts of treeless acres and no wildlife.
A better alternative is to take the billions of dollars and invest it in:
n trams on the centre meridian of Highway 1;
n improving buses throughout all regions of the Fraser Valley and re-instating the interurban rail line, commuter rail and rapid transit; and
n re-routing freight train traffic to perimeter lines out of town.
Would you prefer to walk on the wild side or in Kevin Falcon’s capitalist shoes?
Ask your politicians if they vote yes, and then don’t vote for them. Say no to Gateway.
Sylvia Langmann
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