Very satisfied.

Dear Editor:

I, for one, welcome the traffic calming on New Westminster’s “main arteries” such as 12th Street, taking back our streets and sidewalks for neighbourhood residents, rather than those transiting through our city.

Imagine being able to sit outside a shop such as the popular Village Coffee Lounge sipping your drink without cars and trucks racing by you.

For too long New Westminster has been a speed bump in the regional road network.

Maybe if we make it harder for people to drive through, polluting our city with noise and fumes, they’ll take a different route, or better yet select a different mode of transportation rather than driving.

It’s time to start thinking beyond the car culture.

We don’t want traffic. We don’t want to make it easier for cars in our city.

We want a walkable, livable city we all can enjoy. Good for residents, good for local shops.

Mr. Laird for too long has put forward this viewpoint completely and totally unopposed. Until now. There’s some facts that Mr. Laird should acquaint himself with.

1. New Westminster is not a fortress unto itself in the lower mainland, contrary to his pipe dreams. There isn’t a huge wall on the Fraser River, up Highway 1, crossing at 10th Avenue and going down 20th Street. As much as Mr. Laird would like for this to exist.. it simply doesn’t.

2. Not all services and amenities are within walking distance in the city of New Westminster. For example if you live in Sapperton, the 2 safeway stores, the IGA, and the soon to be built Save On Foods are not within walking distance, and its a huge burden to drag groceries home on a bus. As well, not everyone that lives in New Westminster, works in New Westminster, nor does business that doesn’t take them back and forth through New Westminster.

3. His comments about “…without cars and trucks racing by you.” is made without any actual proof of any kind. What kind of “trucks” is he talking about. If its tractor trailers, let me assure Mr. Laird that tractor trailers do not go racing up and down 12th Street. As for cars, there’s too many lights on 12th street to allow people to get up to any kind of decent speed.

4. His comment, “For too long New Westminster has been a speed bump in the regional road network.” I would totally agree with. Its better to get traffic moving smoothly and efficiently through New Westminster. The truck route believe it or not, follows the standard plan throughout North America, as the route takes commercial traffic to the southern most, and northern most points in the city. And for the most part, its not the trucks that cause the congestion on Columbia Street because we’re not allowed there. Its the cars trying to navigate through what was a major thoroughfare, now choked off by back angle parking. Trucks are prohibited from 12th Street unless making local deliveries, such as the coffee and supplies that Mr. Laird enjoys at the Village Cafe, as well as Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Safeway, IGA etc.

5. “Maybe if we make it harder for people to drive through, polluting our city with noise and fumes, they’ll take a different route, or better yet select a different mode of transportation rather than driving.”

You can’t make it much harder to get through New Westminster. And in terms of taking “a different route” Mr. Laird should take his head out of his behind and think about that. He CLEARLY doesn’t understand the realities of the Lower Mainland and the various transportation networks that exist.

In the last provincial election he showed his ignorance about the Agricultural Land Reserve. After the All Candidates meeting, I confronted Mr. Laird on where he gets his information in regards to goods movement through New Westminster. I’ll preface this by saying that I’m a professional driver who works for a contractor doing local pick ups and deliveries for CP Rail. At that meeting Mr. Laird made reference to containers being moved between the Deltaport container terminal and CP Rail’s Vancouver Intermodal Facility, a statement that was in my opinion, highly misleading and misinformed.

When confronted, he told me his source was an employee of CN Rail, CP Rail’s chief competitor. No facts or figures, nothing else, just the word of an employee of a competing railway. Try asking someone in the actual business of goods movement throughout the region. Someone involved in the industry itself who has a bit of an understanding of how things work. As a professional driver for the past 10 years, as someone who has an interest in the industry I’m involved with along with the community I live in, I’m sick and tired of being attacked by people like Mr. Laird, people who are largely ignorant of the facts and realities of life, who wish to live their lives in a world with a huge wall built around them. And I suppose I’ve turned the other cheek for the last time. As they say, “walk a mile in my shoes” before making false misleading statements.

(Editor: I’d like this posted as a guest column. Thanks.