Opinion

Dear Editor: New Westminster is a beautiful place, full of unique and wonderful things. But it has one feature that isn’t so good. It is unsafe for pedestrians.

Dear Editor: Credit and kudos to those members of our city council who are prepared to rethink the Q2Q crossing options in light of recent cost estimates for the bridge.

Dear Editor: Living at the north end of the Pattullo Bridge in Victoria Hill for the past 11 years, I have crossed it hundreds of times and also went through the frustrating lane closures/repairs this past summer.

What could turn out to be one of the defining issues in the upcoming provincial election is coming into view, and it's not one of the usual topics.

(This blog entry started life earlier today as a Facebook post. I decided it would have more life if I turned it into a blog post, so here’s a slightly revised version.

Dear Editor Now that the Q2Q crossing has, sadly, been laid to rest for the long term, perhaps the city will look what could be done in the short term.

Perhaps it always was a dream that was unrealistic. Perhaps we just wanted so hard to believe it would happen that we didn’t want to look too closely at the plan. We speak of the Q2Q pedestrian access bridge that had been promised for Queensborough.

B.C. has enjoyed the services of a lot of independent Officers of the Legislature - Ombudsman, Privacy Commissioner, Auditor-General etc - but none have made their mark quite like the one who leaves her post this week.

Sometimes it pays to wait. Consider what the New Westminster waterfront might have looked like if the city back in the late ’90s had jumped at Larco’s plan to build five towers on the river.

“I didn’t get my paper.” Those were words that made Mrs. Dobie’s already thin lips get even thinner. In a flash she would be dialing the old rotary phone on her desk.