Premier Christy Clark:
It has been a while since anyone has heard from me, but I find myself needing to write to you about a more sensible use of tax dollars for the lower Sunshine Coast.
I know that $250,000 was released to study the feasibility of building a bridge to join our area to the Lower Mainland. I’m not really certain who that will benefit.
Recent heavy snowfalls brought to light a problem that has plagued this area during worse acts of God. We only have one transportation route between Gibsons and Sechelt: a two-lane winding road with many private drives leading from it. A mudslide prior to my arrival here in 1991 closed that road for a period of time. The recent heavy snowfall saw three sections of that highway completely stopped for a lengthy period of time. I believe a study was completed in the ’90s for a bypass route that would be four lanes at least to Sechelt. Right now, our “bypass” doesn’t bypass anything, other than one hill, and some residential areas. I would guess that the inner coastal highway on Vancouver Island was built because of this very same dilemma. If an ambulance had to pass on the one section where traffic was stopped in both directions covering easily one kilometre, I don’t know that it could have.
A bridge won’t save any lives, but a secondary route easily could. Please consider something that would be of more benefit to the residents of the Sunshine Coast than a bridge would be.
The hourly sailings with smaller ships has worked out fabulously for us, although we are not in the busy season.
Louis Hornung, Gibsons
