Dear Editor
There must a new train company operating on the rail line that crosses at Braid Street – their whistles are incredibly loud, I mean startlingly loud.
It’s been happening for the last couple of months and the engineer is really laying into it at all hours of the night. The other trains are very respectful and only use quick apologetic “toots.”
I read the city report on the process and it appears as though the city is passing the buck on the Braid crossing, stating it is too complicated due to traffic back-ups and will have to wait till the Brunette interchange is completed to address the issue.
The Ministry of Transportation has estimated the Brunette interchange project is five years away from completion if it ever gets started.
The complications this crossing has with traffic back-up during peak traffic times are real, but those complications don’t exist at 3 a.m.
Can’t we do the work necessary on the Braid crossing as outlined in the city report and then have a train whistle black-out period of 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. when there is no traffic?
It feels like the residents of Sapperton are being treated like second-class citizens on this, and the city just wants to piggyback a cost that they are willing to pay for in other neighbourhoods onto a project that might never get off the ground.
And please, before some of you respond with your helpful comments about how “the trains were there first” and “you should move somewhere else” (think Roseanne Barr when you say them), google “cessation of train whistles in urban areas” and read up. It will save us all a bunch of unnecessary back and forth.
Corey Dixon, New Westminster
