6 -- Sunday, December 20, 1998 — North Shore News

north shore news

VIEWPOINT

Nature’s way

AKE a minute this week to

take a look around you.

No doubt sometime in the next few days you'll be stuck in a traffic jam and stuck in a department store queue. Before you begin a quiet boil, take a deep breath and look outside the car and store window. Check out the North Shore mountains and the forest that we have beaten back and tamed into an urban centre.

Many cultures regard the bond between the human animal and nature as inseparable, and as such these cultures worship the natural elements like others worship ancient stories written in books.

We, too, worship nature, though in these modern times we do it in more everyday ways. We walk our dogs in nature. We ski down mountains. We

calm our souls by going for walks through the woods and along the seashore.

The amazing thing is that you can do all these things and more right here on the North Shore.

But too often we get caught up in man-made machinations that are decidedly unnatural. Jostling other shoppers for that last Furby on the shelf is one timely example. Sweating, over whether you bought someone the right gift is another. Just remem- ber — long after the thrill of the Furby is gone, nature will remain. So too should our thankful appreciation for it.

The holiday season is one where it is all too easy to Jose sight of what is real in this world.

Take a minute to remind yourself

ride surf boards in nature’s wake. We

“Although I am a mere minnow swimming in a pcol of sharks, the ripples made in this age of information will eventuaily make waves.”

Gillian Guess, commenting on what it takes to stand up to the legal system after filing a Law Society complaint against Cravwn attorney Joe Bellows, (Front a Dec. 18 News story)

“(The legal profession) is an old boy’s club. They don’t like women, especially vocal women.” Gillian Guess, in the same story. ao

“They couldn't reconcile that I'm in this punk rock band and I have three kids. They couldn’t reconcile that I was in this punk rock band but I ran for the Green Party. They couldn’t reconcile that I was in this punk rock band but I was doing acoustic performances.”

D.O.A. band leader and 20-year punk rocker Joe Keithley, on how his hardcore punk friends view him trying, new things. (From a Dec. 18 News This Sisk Ao" )

“People get paid less in Third World countries. Does that mean we should make the same as them?”

Rod Frew, staff projectionist ar North Vancouver's Esplanade Cinemas, on being asked to take a pay cut of 60% — 20% a year over three ycars because B.C. projectionists earn well over twice the national average. (From a Dec. 16 News

story.) 000

- “If you had a bath tub full of water and called it Indian Arm and filled it with sawdust, that’s what it looked like.”

Eric Kitt, who lives near Helga Bay, about 12 km up Indian Arm, commenting on the landslide that has filled Indian Arm with debris, (rem at Dec. 16 News story)

“It’s difficult for any opposition MLA to particularly shine during a session. Some are very good at it. Unfortunately none of the North Shore MLAs have decid-

to be...”

Keith Baldrey, former Vancouver Sun reporter and BCTV legislative bureau chief, commenting on the performance of our North Shore MLAs. (From a Dec. 13 News focus.)

north shore’ North Shore Stews, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and quabtied Undet Scheduie 111, Paragraph 971 of tthe Excise Tax Act, is publishad each Wednesday, Faidcy and Sunday py North Shore Free Press: LUG. and distributed to every door on te Nortn Shore. Canada Post Canadan Publications Mav Sales Product Agreement No 0087238 Maing rates available on request.

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of what really matters.

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Lions Gate Bridge Politics 1

“HOW Will Our New Old Lions Gate Bridge Serve Us?” asks that colourful elongated brochure promoting Victoria’s eventual solution to the First

Narrows crossing

issue.

Judging by letters to the News, this latest NDP propaganda piece scems to be sticking in quite a few local craws.

Which is a little odd,

since its basic contents

have been public know!-

edge for nine months.

Promising a refurbished

crossing “stronger, wider, smoother, sater,” it sinyply adds a few statistics to the decision already announced by our socialist lords and masters last May,

After five years, a dozen or more “third crossing” bridge and tunnel pro- posals, and $7 million blown on endless foruins, “stakeholder” panels and reviews, the fina! snswer is simply a $78- million facelift or the existing 60-year-ald span to give it a cenupletely new bridge deck, widen each of its three lanes by 20% and render it more carthquake-proof. Plus wider sidewalks on the outside of the bridge structure, separated from the traf fic. And a resurfaced Stanley Park cause- way.

The problem was that every other solution save one — with price-tags (in 1995 dollars) from $200 miflion to more than $1 billion — would have required user tolls for an indefinite period.

Only the imaginative Bentzen Tunnel

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scheme, offering six traffic lanes and nwo LRT tracks, could virtually have paid for itself by selling for development an artifi- cial island to be created off Brockton Point from excavated fill, But alas, “No way!” shricked Vancouver City, thus rendering that plan dead on arrival.

So the solution ulti- mately reached — a bargain-basement upgrade of the venera- ble Lions Gate span — was both inevitable and, from the cash- strapped government’s viewpoint, completely logical.

Inevitable because NDP incompe- tence, which threatens to bankrupt BC, has strictly limited Victoria's financial options. Logical because what options remain are more urgently needed else- where.

All three North Shore municipalities firmly rejected any idea of tolls to pay for a more claborate Lions Gate Bridge upgrade (for example, to four lanes). In particular, they pointed out that tolls would create gridtock on the toll-free and already overloaded Second Narrows Bridge by adding to it former Lions Gate commuters who balked at shelling out an extra $500 ro $1,000 yearly.

Second, in terms of demographics (read vores!) the North Shore west of Chesterfield is currently far from being a top traffic priority with any provincial government.

In daily vehicle totals the Second Narrows Bridge (120,000) handles

and yon

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almost ewice the traffic load of the Lions Gate (67,6003. And the region’s other major water crossings —- Knight Street, Oak Street, Partullo and Alex Fraser — all also carry a greater daily Joad than Lions Gate.

The reason is simple. The area’s onge- ing population shift today is southward 10 Richmond, Delta and Surrey and increas- ingly eastward to such Fraser Valley cen- tres as Langley, Abbotsford and Mission. That's why Victoria is now even looking at the possibility of adding nwo extra lanes to the rush hour-plagued Pert Mann Bridge.

Let’s face it, then. fn this overall regional picture — and given thar democ- racy is based on the needs of the majority — the crossing problems of the western North Shore are pretty small potatoes, no matter what the government of the day. So for the moment, if we preter to stay put in our tasteful North Shore ranchers rather than move to Cloverdale, we'll just have to settle for small mercies.

After all, a smoother, slightly safer ride over the water, costing us not a cent, isn’t

to be entirely sneezed at — at any rate

until the day dawns when we finally turf thase NDP rascals our!

goQo0 MANY HAPPY RETURNS of today, Dec. 20, to North Van birthday gir! Audrey Dart ... And wish the same tomorrow, Dee, 21, to West Van Kiwanian Harry Martin.

a00 WRIGHT OR WRONG: It’s nor enough to aim. The purpose is to hit.

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