6 - North Shore News - Friday, January 14, 2000 cr eee ea ee naan nr anantreenanningfnerennahaced VIEW POIN lean streets NOP LeadeRSHiP EWARE North Shore pedestri- ans: life is cheap and potentially short. Last year’s carnage on the streets was troubling enough. The victims are not faceless statistics. They are your friends, neighbours and relatives. Among them: an 82-year-old pedestrian hit by a car on Feb. 18 as she crossed Tatlow Avenue at Marine Drive; a 12-year-old boy kilied on March 12 while crossing St. Andrews Avenue near East Keith Road in North Vancouver; an 82-year-old woman struck by a vehicle while in a crosswalk on Mount Scymour Parkway at Parkgate Avenue on April 14; a 31- year-old: North Vancouver woman hit “by a car May 12 as she tried to protect her 2¥, year-old son from being struck by the same vehicle on Highland Boulevard; a 13-year-old bov suffered mailbox ‘Dear Editor: _ grants wanted. a tries have ma: ~ objective. Zero population - growth is the target Re: Noel Wright’s Jan. 2 column, Babies and immi- In the early 1950s the book Silent Spring and the ‘ Confrence of Rome alerted us to the dangers of pollu- tion and over-populatioa, and since that time many coun- de le zero-population growth their policy and Ta the 34 years we have lived in che same house in West a concussion on Dec. 10 after he was struck by a hit aid run driver in the 900-block of Montroyal Boulevard. The year is young yet, but we're off to a bad beginning in 2000. On Jan. 6, a 64-year-old North Vancouver woman died after she was struck by a car driven by an 85-year- old North Vancouver woman. The vic- tim’s 4]-year-old blind son was also injured in the 500-block of East 29th Street. Just this Wednesday a North Vancouver provincial court judge sen- tenced a driver to a 30-day licence sus- pension and a $1,000 fine for killing a senior attempting to cross a street in Lynn Valley in 1998. It’s a laughable punishment. Let’s drop the facade. We ali know that a car can be used as a weapon — just like a gun, It’s time for real consequences, intent to kill or not. CaMPaIGN : Fog shrouds Bay's ferry future HOW now, Horseshoe Bay? And whither, BC Ferries? The future for this little bay — so dramatic Howe Sound mountains — has the corp and West Vancouver council almost at daggers drawn. Bizarrely, our town has been partly mollified by the corp’s on-again, pretty, cosy and picturesque, and yct so sternly beautiful with its backdrop of the Vancouver. we have witnessed Park Royal grow from a ‘pleasant; single-level, tree-lined shopping centre on the north side of Marine Idrive to a major multi-level parkade- fronted shopping mail monster. And from being able to - park anywhere in Dundarave or Ambleside i it is (now) dif- ‘ficult to park at all. The increase in pollution and the deterioration in the quality of jife through population explosion is very appar- : inte and, at some stage has to stop, and sooner rather than ater. 8 8 : i, The decrease i in the 1c percentage of the work force to the ‘senior population i is offset by theiz increased productivity. ‘1980s with a 30% decrease in size but over a 30% increase in productivity. This trend comtinues in ail industries. Under‘these conditions provision of pensions should not be a problem but we do need government incentives, and maybe legislation,.to encourage better personal sav- ings. lans. The 20% limit.i in foreign content in RRSPs should be abolished for a start. "And as population levels off. 0 would the need for early ", retirement. : : Zero-population growth 1 remains the desired objective. - Increases in. birth rate.and immigration are certainly ‘not required.. . Vagree with the statistics you quote but not your con- clusion 7 Ralph Carder West Vancouver, . = Hoeth Shora News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and quaified amides Schedule 411, Paragraph 11% of the Excise Tax Act, ts published each Wednesd?y. Friciay and Sunday by HCN Pubtcabons ‘Company and dstrdbuted to every door on the North Shore. Canada Post Canydan Publications ‘Mail Sales Product Agseement No. 0087238. : The forest industry came out of a depression in the — Si vemcntten erm oy etn 7 off-again rerouting of most Nanaitio-bound ultra-heavy trucks from the bay to Tsawwassen terminal — dumping part of our problem on Dela and on all users of that stressed terminal, including North Shore residents. That’s because the PacifiCats can't handle the big rigs. An oblique West Van victory for NOMBR — “not on my back roads.” BC Ferries delivered its $26-million expansion plan for the bay to council in November. Town hall staff is preparing a response. On Feb. 7 council will set a date for a public meetiag on the issue. Now this scifish admission: | live 10 minutes from Horseshoe Bay, and — doubtless like many North Shoreans — when I want to travel to Nanaimo and northward on Vancouver Ssland, I’m delighted that the ferry point is so close. Aad when I'm not using it, ’m unhappy with the motor traffic it gener- ates. In short, my opinion of the service varies in exact proportion to whether it happens to convenience me at any given PETER SPECK eluate Publisher 985-2137 (101) eas 2131 le) Dra tlt ¥ Partialen Terry Peters Valorie Stapheasoe Bzvid Whitman naieweae ens Distribution Manager Creative Sevens Diecor Photography Manager Classified Manager _Display Advertising Manager General Otce Manager 985-2131 (114) meraress NT 985-1337 (124) 995-2131 (127) 985-2131 (160) 926-6222 (202) _ 980-0511 (317) 988-2131 (105) General Manager Resources Manager - $5 2131 (8) Entire contents @ 1999 HCN Publications Company. All rights reserved.” Langdale and Bowen island — will be as great as the bay’s total traffic now. Last month CAFTE representatives moment. Of course that’s not the way to look at it. Of course it’s the way most people do. met with Bob Lingwood, BC Ferries But West Vancouver council has to president and chief executive officer, The examine the issue from result? the perspective of its “Basically we agreed tu disagree,” said over-all perceived Moonen. When Lingwood appeared eatlier before council, Moonen described the Scene abattoir-style: “Allan Williams just ripped the head off Bob Lingwood — just tore (RC Ferries) to shreds.” In any event, if West Van has i its way, any compromise would be only a transi- tion to total relocation of the mainland . terminal for the Nanaimo service. Such as? Iona (just 55 minutes to Nanaimo, but how would that go down in the sur- rounding area?). Downtown Vancouver (shades of the old CPR ferry service). / And Russ Fraser during his mayoral cam- ‘— paign suggested Porteau Cove or Britannia (more traffic on the scary road” to Whistler? Shudder.). oa aa And now in the mix are the “Fast : Cats,” the supposedly muscular ferries exclusively aimed at the Nanaimo service, which have become Katastrophic Kittens. I get a sinking sensation 1 whenever I- think ofthem. — : impact on West Vancouver. A heavily attended meeting last July backed councif to the hilt in the face of BC Ferries’ chronic attempts to keep irate citizens from _ preparing the tar and feathers, while simulta- neously drawing up plans to expand facilities at the bay. Such as a 10-lane holding ares for motor traffic, requiring blasting 70,000 cubic metres of rock from the surround- ing slopes. Such as a three-storey 450-car parkade, passenger area, administration office and maintenance facility on the present parking site. New Mayor Ron Wood made getting rid of the Nanaimo service one of his four inaugural speech goals. Returning the bay to its 1945 condi- tion is the dream of Coun, Allan Williams -~ one of a dwindling few who can” remember it as it was. Members of the Citizens Against Ferry Traffic Expansion (CAFTE) want the brakes put on any expansion, and a long-range plan by BC Ferries to getou- tathere. John Moonen, a CAFTE director, cites a projection that if the Nanaimo ser- vice were yarded out completely, within 10 years the traffic on the other two ser- vices out of Horseshoe Bay ~— to a ac _ . Sen columnist Malcolm Parry. wi reports Moe Sihota’s observation over CKWX on the New Democratic Party leadership campaign: “People look int both kind of entrails and try to read tea. leaves that don’t exist.” ; A mixed Moe-taphor. of classic prop tions. Which fork in his tongue was th NDP’s biggest fibber using that day? 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