Editor:
In response to Gary Pennington’s letter (“Director misguided on 101,” May 31), here are some reasons we may not want a major freeway on the hillside above us.
1) We need to think about what transportation will look like 30 years from now – more like the fast trains in Europe than the freeways in U.S. cities.
2) Frontage roads (like Carmen Road in Gibsons) would do more to enhance safety than a freeway, especially for cyclists, and frontage roads would provide emergency vehicle access when the Sunshine Coast Highway is blocked because of a collision.
3) The “access to nature in the local mountainous area” would soon look more like the North Shore after the Upper Levels Highway was constructed – not much nature left, only more secondary roads, houses, sidewalks, a sewer system, streetlights, and more water consumption.
I may be correct in thinking that Mr. Pennington’s view is not the one held by “most residents of Roberts Creek.” I would argue that most of us chose Roberts Creek to build our home and raise our children because of the rural environment. At a standing-room-only meeting in the Hall (our first meeting to develop our Official Community Plan, adopted in 1994), on the survey paper asking “What attracted you to Roberts Creek,” first on the list for 78 per cent of us was TREES. A freeway and the ensuing development will soon take the rural out of Roberts Creek.
Carolann Glover, Roberts Creek
