Causeway issue is no walk in the park IT’S narrower minds versus wider causeway lanes. And more than North Shore residents will be short- changed if those minds pre- vail. To judge by media reports of the event, the majority of attendees at last Monday night’s Vancouver Park Board meeting hail from the Those Who Yell Loudest Win schoo! of debating. But commuters -—— North Shore, Vancouver, Sunshine Coast, Whistler, Squamish and all points in between — will ultimately be the losers in this battle over a minus- cule amount of park real estate if the Vancouver Park Board’s backbone disinte- grates and it waffles on widening the Stanley Park causeway. : Already it has deferred its decision on the issue until another public hearing can be held even though, with causeway sidewalk. work con- tinuing apace, time is of the essence.” There is far more at stake . in this issue than a handful of Stanley Park trees. At the end of January, a ‘ coalition made up of the ’ park board, ICBC. Vancouver City, TransLink and the BC Transportation Financing Authority released “an enlightened plan to resolve the causeway conun- drum. Tt. included adding the six feet of width to the causeway to bring the busy thorough- fare’s three lanes up to . - provincial road standards and to make them consistent with the lanes of the upgrad- “ed Lions Gate Bridge. — ~*~ “Also included in the plan ~ were such environmentally friendly components as improved bicycle access to the causeway and the park; returning the Chilco bus oop to park land; and reduc- ing the severity of the cause- way’s dangerous S-curve at st Lagoon. The realigned rould allow clec- : through participaticn in fully managed mutual fund portfolios. . sounds like a ripping yarns tric trolley buses to replace diesel buses in the park — thereby reducing Stanley Park air and noise pollution. Transit trolley buses ser- viced the park until 1993. They were discontinued because it became too dan- gerous for trolleys to make the left-hand turn on Georgia Street to get into the Chilco bus loop. The coalition’s plan also recognizes a long-term objective to remove private automobile traffic from the park by 2030 in conjunction with the development of a new Burrard Inlet crossing. Is any of the foregoing sinking in with the envirofans across the water? Because it retty green approach to the park to me. Environmental impact from the plan would amount to the removal of anywhere from 40 to 120 trees and the loss of approximately one acre of parkland. Wind and park mainte- nance take out at least that many trees in any given year, and parkland lost to the causeway will be offset with the return to the park of the Chilco bus loop property. But to hear the high-fre- quency speakers at the Monday night’ s park board meeting you'd think clear- cut logging had been approved for Stanley Park with an opening drop of Agent Orange to soften up the area thrown in for good measure. A\l that was missing was a chorus or two.of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi. Let’s get real here. We're not talking about cutting a fresh swath through the park to install a causeway. The road has run through the park for the past 60 years. We're talking about bringing a substandard traffic artery chat handles approxi- mately 65,000 vehicles per day from all over the Lower Mainland and Howe Sound corridor up to basic safety standards by widening each lane approximately two feet — from 2.9 metres (9.5 feet) per lane to 3.5 metres (11.5 feet). And safety is an increas- ingly pressing issue tor cause- way users. “Already buses are losing side-view mirrors when they Pass over-size vehicles on the causeway. And the accident rate in the causeway and at the south end S-curve is sig- nificant. If the park board contin- ues to block the widening of what it knows to be the causeway’s substandard lanes it faces a serious liability issue from causeway accident vic- tims. Elsewhere parochial pols are dragging such red her- rings across the park trail as fears of increased speed and increased traffic from an upgraded causeway. In other words: leave it substandard. and dangerous so that com- muters have to be extra alert to use it and ieave it substan- dard or it will attract driving buffs from all over the area eager to take advantage of that extra six feet. Predictably there has been No green outcry over the widening of the causeway’s sidewalks from a combined cight feet to 13 feet. The completed sidewalk on the causeway’s cast side is an imposing piece of con- crete work, But who uses it? Were one of the cause- way's sidewalks to be elimi- nated, as their usage would dictate in any sane world, the causeway's lanes could be brought up to standard with- out having to widen the causeway at all. But environmental emo- tion rules on this issue. Common sense does not. —trenshaw@nsnews.com The public needs to take control of transit decisions Dear Editor: Bravo to Timothy Renshaw’s Ripping Yarns column on public transporta- tion (N. transit bus, Jan. 23). As a person who is a reg- ular user of transit I answered an ad in the North Shore News for committee members for the North Shore ‘Area Public Advisory Committce for — North Vancouver City. I assumed there would be the same concerns that I had for safety, efficiency and affordability. What a blonde moment that was! Let’s look at safety. I am presently seeking information on satety issues at Phibbs Exchange from the RCMP. However, I am told by Bill Lambert (program man- ager, project — planning “fransLink) chat there are no plans for security guards at Phibbs Exchange. Have the public not shown concern about safety there? Well, guess again, because it appears to me there is a glass ceiling at TransLink. Mr. Lambert, George Puil and other TransLink man- agers are a part of it — but not you and T, even though we pay for this system — just pay up and shut up is the Lefts are not right Dear Editor: Re: West Van traffic con- cerns raised, Friday, Jan. 28. Keep it short and keep it simple: ban all left-hand turns off Marine Drive in both directions! Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three rights make a | He For the litte extra time it takes a driver of a vehicle to “go around one block” a lot of holdups and frustrations could be alleviated. 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I don’t know much about transit but I know in the early "90s (or ate ‘80s) there were five Flyer buses at $250,000 each parked because they didn’t work in the snow. In 1995/96 transit pur- chased a fleet of minibuses worth $275,000 each. They were also defective. I wonder if any one was held accountable? If people were concerned in the past, they better get really concerned now, as there is not even an oppasi- tion party to hold TransLink accountable and the ability to tax you and me is huge and where will they be accountable? The arrogance by officials at TransLink — they will quickly tell you how many drivers they have and what they are paid but they won't give you that information about management. Nice, solid glass ceiling! I am trying my best to stand up for what I believe in and that is anything the pub- lic pays for they have a right to control. As you can imagine ! am as popular as a skunk at a garden party and I’m sure I will be asked to leave soon. 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