6., EridaysFehtugry. 2401986, - North Shore News- TE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER eae Lopes Peter Speck ' ore Noel Wught a ee fi a Nancy Weatherley y f Berni Hillard Linda Stewart Publisher: Editor-in-Chiet Managing Editor Operations Manager Advertising Director Display Advertising 980-0511 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 965-2131 Circulation 986-1337 Subscriptions 986.1337 . . = - North Shore News, SUNDAY + WEDNEBDAY - FRIDAY anise Tae Ace it 1139 Lonsdale Ave. Still in the dark bn MANUELED North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 56,245 (average. Wednesday Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1986 North Shore Free Press Lid All rights reserved IF THERE 15 ANYONE WHOSE BUSINESS INTERESTS LEAVE THE ROOM. ce L all to her shortcomings. ike an eccentric old aunt Jong past her prime, the Lions Gate Bridge has been lavished with $300,000 worth of brilliant costume jewelry designed to blind The old dear has been tarted up with 170 mercury vapor lights painstakingly strung by work crews over the past few months at a total cost of $600,000. Provincial and municipal dignitaries rung in the celebrations with the poetic pageantry of school children paying homage to a played out legend. Thousands watched in varying states of awe. Despite this touching (ribute to a marvel of engineering eccentricity, and despite the glorified Christmas-tree ef- fect presented to tourists by the nocturnal spectacle, the lights serve only to draw greater attention to what North Shore commuters heap daily abuse upon. No matter how they are juggled, the bridge’s three lanes are perpetually 5umper-to-bumper; no matter the glorious architecture, the rich history, the grudging af- fection stirred by its peculiarity, the Lions Gate Bridge in its present state is 2 commuter nightmare. As of Thursday it is a commuter nightmare brilliantly lit up for all to see. Because the bridge’s aging 47-year-old structure cannot support an additional lane, plans to mount sidewalks on its exterior and widen existing lanes were drawn up. But the estitmated $40 million cost was also too much to support. So instead of structural or engineering im- provement to help ease passage, we have lights, All the better to check your watch while you wait, stalled at mid-span with fellow members of the Lions Gate Bridge Parking Lot Club. Widening causeway not the answer Dear Editor: I don’t think very much of the proposal by Mr. Craig Clark, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Alderman in the District of North Vancouver, to widen the Stanley Park Causeway. (See North Shore News, Jan. 12/ 86). I haven’t heard a dumber idea in a long time and I’ve heard some ‘ulus’. . : To widen the causeway doesn’t make. sense unless you widen the Lions Gate Bridge which is not possible, at least to four lanes, or build a new bridge which doesn’t Publicity a boost Dear Editor: Last fall I appealed for dona- tions to our Lions Gate Auxiliary thrift shop, 128 West 15th Street. Thanks to the publicity in Mr. Noel Wright’s column we certainly teceived a boost. Dianne Dashwood-Jones. LGH Auxiliary make much sense either unless you build an appropriate freeway system on both sides. If you do that, you are really opening up a ‘bag of snakes’. You don’t solve the traffic pro- blem by building more freeways leading into a limited area such as Vancouver. You only make the problem worse and you would most certainly create a concrete jungle and destroy the liveability of both Vancouver and North Vancouver. Goodbye low density North Vancouver! This is quite apart from the hor- rendous cost of such a system which is why the City of. Van- couver for years pressed for rapid transit, which has now come on stream. There are not many things I would want to guarantee, con- sidering the foolishness of some politicians, but I can guarantee that the peopie of Vancouver would not mortgage themselves to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars to build a freeway system through their city to accommodate us on the North Shore. There is only one viable solution and that is to extend the ALRT to _ the North Shore and, until that Preserve jobs or Dear Editor: In their letter to the NEWS (Jan. 31), Marlene Huctcr and Redner Jones raise some im}-ortant points about native rights and land elaims. . There sre a number ef difficult choices to be made in resolving these issues. We have to decide te- tween much-needed jobs and the preservation of cherished ecological values. : We also have to weigh our moral cbligations to native people against our commitments to those to whom we have granted legal rights to the lands in dispute. Finding the solutions to these challenging questions will not be easy so it is important that we do not allow misguided sentimentality to cloud our thinking. In particular we must be careful ‘mot fo attribute god-like qualities happens, to finish the Low Level Road to accommodate a fast bus service from Deep Cove to West Vancouver and to have at least one more additional SeaBus crossing to Vancouver until an ALRT exten- sion to the North Shore becomes economic. To work in that direction has been proposed to North Vancouver District Council and I invite Ald. Craig Clark to support this idea and to abandon his hare-brained scheme and two-bit solution to the north-south traffic problem. ‘Ald. Ernie Crist Dist. of North Vancouver culture? to all native people. Our dismay with the failings of the dominant society may inspire us to seek and perceive perfection in another culture. But this is nei- ther reasonable nor fair to ourselves or to our native brothers and sisters with whom we share every human weakness and Strength. John R. Cox West Vancouver Safe refuge from. violence On behalf of the board of the North Shore Crisis Services Society { would jike to thank the. North Shore News for their donation to our Emily Murphy House Pro- gram. Ours is a very essential service, offering women and their children, who are unwilling victims of fami- ly violence, a safe refuge and the support they need in order to make some difficult decisions and changes in their lives. We are always in need of finan- cial assistance in order to maintain this vital service. We therefore ap- preciate your donation and your continued support. David Gibbs Treasurer - North Vancouver North Shore voters are short changed Dear Editor: As I have no partisan political ties, but am vitally interested in democratic principles, ‘a tender nerve was set jangling on reading a recent letter from Honorable Jack Davis, M.L.A. to the News tided ‘*Democracy at Risk.” In it he belittled the teaching profession and forecast all man- ner of frightening results if the opposition should win the next election. 1 noticed, however, that in a recent letter to the Simon Fraser University student newspaper The Peak, he signed his name with a string of six academic degrees. Mr. Davis is to be commended on his fine scholastic record, but one wonders why the present government does not capitalize on his learned background and include him in cabinet decisions. In their wisdom, or perhaps lack of it, North Shore residents have democratically elected three Social Credit members to repre- sent their interests in Victoria. At present the B.C. legislature consists of 57 seats, 34 of which are occupied by the ruling party. Cabinet appointments number 22, which means a ratio of two out of 3 members have cabinet status. Using these figures as a ben- chmark, one wonders why the North Shore with three elected members representing over 150,000 persons has no cabinet representation. According to the above ratio, we should have two cabinet members; one Is prompted to ask why we haven’t. Mr. Davis warns that democracy in B.C. might be at risk in the future; there are those who maintain that it is at risk right now. The B.C. legislature sits in session for less time than any other Canadian provincial government. Legislation, political control, and decisions are executed by cabinet decree which works in- camera and does not encourage or invite open debate and discus- sion by the general public, the media, or Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Back benchers have no say in cabinet decisions, therefore it becomes clear that North Shore voters have been politically short-changed. Al Emsley North Vancouver