Teamsters want bridge twinned
The Surrey Now looks at one traditional NDP faction that has abandoned Carole James over her anti-Port Mann stance: The Teamsters Union.That didn't sit well with Don McGill, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 213, the union representing many local truck drivers.
He can't believe James turned thumbs down on twinning the bridge. "Don't come knocking on my door come election time. That's all I've got to say to her."
McGill said calling for more trains and buses instead of expanding the freeway won't help his members deliver goods faster. "It's costing the economy of this province tens of millions of dollars to have our trucks sitting in traffic. Every hour they're parked costs $100 and that drives up the cost of goods. I've never seen a bus that can accommodate a dump truck."
Good to see the Teamsters standing up for common sense and a balanced transportation solution for this underserved region.
The Now reinforces what the vast majority of south Fraser residents know: this bridge needs to be twinned:
Opposition leader Carole James was quite clear she opposes twinning the bridge, preferring to delay the project for years to come.
Since James made those comments, her Surrey MLAs have been trying to explain what she really meant to say and the confusion over their position grows.
Delaying the construction of the bridge makes no sense. The NDP's idea of just increasing transit is rhetoric designed to appease voters sipping cappuccino along Commercial Drive.
Anyone who has ever sat in the the parking lot that is the Port Mann understands the need to increase the bridge's capacity.
Anyone who has ever crossed the bridge realizes you can't increase transit service without improving capacity.
The area south of the Fraser River is growing and we need a complete overhaul on the way transportation works, including roads, bridges and transit.
The good news is by the time of the next election, development of twinning the bridge will be too far along for the NDP to stop.
3 Comments:
I can't wait for one of your anonymous posters to add the following comment; "Of course the Teamsters Union supports the twinning of the Port Mann -- they are part of Gordon Campbell's right wing conspiracy to Americanise our roadways like George Bush."
Thanks for posting these comments. It really shows how offside Carole James and the NDP are when it comes to average working people. They are so focused on the ideological agenda's of every special interest group that shows up to one of their meetings that they can't find solutions to anything.
The NDP can't see the forest for the trees!
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The Teamster's never were formally affiliated with the NDP. Still, it does show that James, like Chudnovsky, was cleverly manipulated by Liberal owned and operated "enviromental organizations" into taking this suicidal position.
The Liberals are the trickiest party in Canada, and the NDP is always primer sucker bait for any group that pretends to be fighting some American or corporate Goliath. Most of the supposedly shoeless young radicals campaigning against Gateway on their bicycles and skateboards are, in reality, the sons and daughters of the well-to-do landowners of Vancouver's Westside.
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