Editor:
Re: New overpass to provide direct access to airport, July 4
I am amazed at the number of overpasses all over Delta lately and also in the past 15 to 20 years. What concerns me is they're putting them up in all the wrong places.
What happened to the need for overpasses at 52nd Street and Highway 17, 56th Street and Highway 17, and Ladner Trunk Road and Highway 17, which has needed some kind of overpass there for the past 20 years? A good engineer could figure out something there.
Also, 52nd Street and Highway 17 will need an overpass soon because of the two Tsawwassen First Nation shopping malls proposed near that intersection. And 56th Street and Highway 17 has always needed one for traffic volume from Tsawwassen, the ferries and, soon, the shopping malls.
Speaking of traffic volume, Highway 99 should have been four lanes each way 20 years ago. Then it could have connected to 80th Street, which is only one city block away.
The three levels of government should have got together and insisted that Port Metro Vancouver could not build any more overpasses in Delta until these three overpasses were done. Then what was said about international trade, while reducing traffic congestion, improving air quality and building a stronger economy, would have been fulfilled.
I appreciate all the new enhancements of railroad projects and trade competitiveness, and the airport needs this 80th Street overpass, but I think the long-term vision of the municipality and Port Metro Vancouver has missed some important overpasses we have needed locally for years now.
As we are known for the most greenhouses in the Lower Mainland, we could also be known for the most overpasses in the Lower Mainland.
Or at least the most this side of Richmond.
Gordon Sever
