Editor:
Here are some reasons we shouldn’t have a fixed road to the Sunshine Coast:
• Our water supply needs protecting. It couldn’t support our present population this summer and global warming will only worsen this problem.
• More housing and industrial development means more deforestation. The amount of trees and forests are what produce rain, which gives us our water.
• Tourism. Tourists are attracted to our small, quaint towns and our pristine forests, not wall-to-wall housing or congestion.
• Increased cost of infrastructure. We would need to build a larger water system, sewage system, garbage collection and disposal system, bigger roads and road maintenance and an increased police force and policing.
• Increase in crime due to easy road access and exit. The ferry system offers more protection this way.
• No gain in time or safety. Driving to Squamish and adding to an already congested, narrow and dangerous Sea to Sky Highway is not a bonus alternative.
Growth for the sake of growth and jobs only is an outdated and self-destructive concept. Self-sustainability is the future, practical and necessary. I would like to see the ferry corporation de-privatized, returned to government control and management and subsidized as part of the Trans-Canada Highway system like the rest of Canada enjoys. Put the $1 billion estimated cost for a road into our ferry system to improve and maintain it properly as well as lowering user cost.
Andrea Smith, Halfmoon Bay
