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Letters: More wasted money

The George Massey Tunnel re-election gimmick is in full swing and politicians at all levels of government are going to squeeze as much election lucre as they can from this questionable project.
George Massey Tunnel
The approach to the George Massey Tunnel in Delta.

Editor:

The George Massey Tunnel re-election gimmick is in full swing and politicians at all levels of government are going to squeeze as much election lucre as they can from this questionable project.

The reality is more than pathetic, replacing a perfectly good tunnel, with a huge multi-billion dollar edifice which will move congestion to Richmond is the hallmark of poor planning and politicians squandering the taxpayer's dollar.

The region desperately needs an affordable and user-friendly transportation plan that realistically improves transportation across the region instead of the current patchwork of politically prestigious projects, costing billions of dollars that will fail and just add to congestion.

$4.6 billion is being spent to extend the SkyTrain light metro lines a mere 12.8 km, yet for this amount of money, very few cars, if any, will be taken off the road. Light-metro is deemed obsolete as it has proven to be poor in attracting ridership. No one has copied Vancouver's exclusive use of light metro.

The $2.2 billion Canada Line is more of a financial tool to enrich the P-3 concessionaires, SNC Lavalin and the Quebec Caisse de dépôt. Ill built from the beginning, internationally, the Canada line is deemed a classic "White Elephant" and again, no one has copied building a heavy-rail metro as a light metro.

One can go on and on, with politically inspired transportation projects, the four lane Patullo Bridge replacement, planning SkyTrain here, there and everywhere, designed solely to benefit politicians at election time.

According to Delta MP Carla Qualtrough in a recent story in the Optimist, financing for the tunnel is on a holding pattern. Sure it is, until the Prime Minister calls the next election, then it will be back to shoveling taxpayer's money off the back of a truck, using multi-billion dollar mega projects as voter magnets and it works almost every time.

D. M. Johnston