Dear Editor:
Re: Queen's Park grabs residents' attention, The Record, March 16.
My wife and I are concerned that, as usual, special interest groups will dominate over the legitimate wishes and suggestions of the average family as to how to make an already great park an even better Queen's Park for all.
We seem to agree that a new concrete pier on the waterfront is not a park.
We seem to agree that a newly blacktopped old dock is not a park.
We seem to agree that some lawn along a busy railroad track and truck route, with too much air pollution, is not really a park.
Difficult access to waterfront parks, like Sapperton Landing and Westminster Pier Park, will mean few seniors and families with children will use these parks.
Most of the time, instead of walking up and down the steep hills, they will drive to, most likely, Queen's Park.
We were very disappointed to see the especially high ugly chain link fence around the new artificial turf field.
The new field looks more like a prison exercise yard than a playground.
This was a questionable, very costly, much-over-budget city hall project as the field probably only needed more crowning and better drainage, not necessarily artificial turf - with such, as well, a huge loss of green space.
Artificial turf has apparently some significant health concerns, especially for children, during the summer.
What we would really like to see is a more "family-friendly" park by replacing the underused tennis courts on the south end of the park with trees, bushes, perhaps another rose-like garden, a child's play area, more picnic benches etc. The usage of the park has increased a lot with all the new nearby residential apartments, so more area for families is obviously necessary.
What we really need for historic downtown New Westminster, desperately so, as we have lost so much green space, especially on a per capita basis, is a real family-friendly park, perhaps adjacent to Victoria Street near Sixth Street and Eighth Street too. A park, easy to walk to, with lots of green space, a place for children to play, a place for dogs to exercise and friends and neighbours to meet, to socialize and perhaps, even, to picnic together.
Finally, we have complete trust in the New Westminster parks department, who have demonstrated to us they know what a park is and how to maintain it to a very high standard.
So whatever plan the parks department ultimately agrees with will be fine with us.
Allan and Iris Solie, New Westminster
