Quote: was with shock and

adsf

oops

Sorry, that one earns a "worst" comment.

Dave (who confuses "Preview" with "Post" apparently)

How does one *end* a quote?

It should read.

Here Alcan now wants to sell power rather than use their Kemano power for aluminum smelting. It risks the future of Kitimat yet Campbell supports Alcan.

Facts, not marketing

Uh, Delta is only to increase its population by another 17,000 to 106,000 under the LRSP. Surrey is set to nearly double from 269,000 to 472,000, but because the early developers refused to increase the density on building lots above single-family or townhouse, they may not even make that.

Unless Surrey goes in for wholesale upzoning of already developed land (lots of screams from residents, and a very expensive proposition for Surrey council, as it has to re-service the upzoned land before it can be developed at higher density), Surrey is set to become a bedroom community, and its fast-eroding developable land base won't be an asset, but rather a burden as the average distances between home and community assets stays huge, rather than shrinking as Vancovuer, Burnaby and the North Shore are seeking to do.

The article on Watts in the weekend paper was correct in several respects. She is the first mayor Surrey has had in a long time that seeks to incorporate the aims of all the residents of Surrey, not just the aims of the cheap-ass end of the development industry that only knows how to build single-family housing.

You want density? A new town centre? Look at Tri-Cities. Compact, dense zoning, 330,000 residents at build-out, with a reserve of 630 acres in developable land. A reasonable balance of industry, commercial and residential. Allowances for schools, community centres, roads and transit. Plans for the future.

...some things that were entirely lacking in Surrey until 2004.

Write the Premier

A great opportunity to write the Premier, Finance Minister Taylor and your MLA

Premier Gordon Campbell
MLA Vancouver-Point Grey

604 660-3202

Hon. Carole Taylor
MLA Vancouver-Langara
Minister of Finance

604 664-0115

Find your MLA
http://www.leg.bc.ca/mla/index.htm

Evergreen Line Delayed

The SFPR has also delayed the Evergreen Line. Falcon has stated the construction industry does not the capacity for too many large projects at once. Guess which one he has chosen. SFPR.

the true meaning of God

"this is merely a commercial matter that sacrifices the community, its long way of life and its history, to the god Mammon"

But that's just it, Rafe. We are dealing with religious fanaticism here, and the God is Mammon. Nobody cares about the long way of life or about history, they don't think they need to, and maybe they don't. These things have a way of coming true in ways nobody dreamed of. We act like there's no tomorrow - and there wont be. Neat, eh?

There is a book titled 'Organizing from the inside out'. In it, the thought is developed, that most people, when they reorganize anything, commit the error of taking some elements of the given situation as unchangeable, and then put on some 'fixes' to that. What they should do, the book says, is to start from scratch in one corner and re-think it all from the beginning. What would we build, what would it look like, knowing all we know now, but starting over?

I believe this is what we must do, or else we are merely putting off, pretending, mitigating a little, but not making the changes that would truly put us on a better footing.

I believe we have three possible futures. The game-playing with entropy we are using now, which will result in collapse, bloody infighting and chaos, with maybe a few survivors, who will then start another cycle of the same idiocy; just staying in our groove, turning Earth's entire bio-mass into human flesh and all else into garbage, ending in a purging by Mother Earth herself, obliterating us as we deserve, or the possible redesign, which might actually do the job and give us a liveable future.

We keep talking about our specialty being this colosally over-sized brain we're supposed to have been equipeed with, It's about time we demonstrate the veracity of that claim.

Roads or Transit

The lower mainland is growing at an exponential rate. Of course we need more transit up the valley but we also need more roads into the city. Should the road expansion go first? Of course not but it's needed nonetheless. This government is always going to promote the interests of their business friends before the interests of local residents. Maybe that could change if enough people take action but despite all the concerns posted here I bet Val Roddick gets reelected in Delta the next time we go to the polls.

I support the communities right to argue for alternative routes and to press for increased rapid transit but like most people in the suburbs I also support twinning the Port Mann and creating highways to speed up truck traffic in the city.

It does no good to email

Emailing the politicians is a waste of time. None of them give any indication that they even read them and quite possibly a staff person presses the delete button. Phone their offices. At least you tie up the lines a bit and if enough people do it they might get the message.

Hear, hear, Dorothy

Dorothy hit the nail on the head!!!!!

So much so that it bears repeating:

""this is merely a commercial matter that sacrifices the community, its long way of life and its history, to the god Mammon"

But that's just it, Rafe. We are dealing with religious fanaticism here, and the God is Mammon. Nobody cares about the long way of life or about history, they don't think they need to, and maybe they don't. These things have a way of coming true in ways nobody dreamed of. We act like there's no tomorrow - and there wont be. Neat, eh?

There is a book titled 'Organizing from the inside out'. In it, the thought is developed, that most people, when they reorganize anything, commit the error of taking some elements of the given situation as unchangeable, and then put on some 'fixes' to that. What they should do, the book says, is to start from scratch in one corner and re-think it all from the beginning. What would we build, what would it look like, knowing all we know now, but starting over?

I believe this is what we must do, or else we are merely putting off, pretending, mitigating a little, but not making the changes that would truly put us on a better footing.

I believe we have three possible futures. The game-playing with entropy we are using now, which will result in collapse, bloody infighting and chaos, with maybe a few survivors, who will then start another cycle of the same idiocy; just staying in our groove, turning Earth's entire bio-mass into human flesh and all else into garbage, ending in a purging by Mother Earth herself, obliterating us as we deserve, or the possible redesign, which might actually do the job and give us a liveable future.

We keep talking about our specialty being this colosally over-sized brain we're supposed to have been equipeed with, It's about time we demonstrate the veracity of that claim."

Our brains!

If we do not start using them soon we shall all sound like Homer

D'oh!

Where is Flying Phil when you need him?

Rafe Mair succeeded Phil Gaglardi, the mythic highway builder of the Wacky Bennett epoch, as the Socred MLA for Kamloops. His provincial campaigns were managed by one Douglas "Bud" Smith, a lawyer who had previously worked for road building companies and who was the real push behing building the Coquihalla Freeway. So when he talks about "the road gang", Rafe is well informed!

I agree there are serious environmental and agricultural problems with the South Fraser Perimeter Road. These problems need to be solved by mitigation, a fancy name for money being spent on ameliorative or restorative measures, and improved design.

The fact that there are serious environmental and land use issues with this part of Gateway puts the lie to the intentionally dishonest comments by Vancouver and Burnaby critics that it's Port Mann and Hwy 1 that are the principal issue. Indeed, in its Quixotic resolution opposing PMH1, Vancouver City Council made it crystal clear that they had no problem, none at all, with either the South or North Fraser Perimeter Roads, only PMH1. The truth is that PMH1 uses an existing highway ROW, plus some other industrial and commercial land, and therefore has virtually no incremental environmental impact, while SFPR has in fact a major environmental impact.

Rafe asks if the economic good of BC and Canada should take precedence over a community maintaining its way of life. If we were talking about a small village being impacted by some resource or highway development that would bring it much grief and little benefit, one could understand, but Delta is a part of the bustling Lower Mainland, and the plea is a bit much. In Maple Ridge we see the highway builders gobbling up golf course land and wetlands for the approaches to the new Golden Ears Bridge, and while the passing of a way of life should occaision some reflection, not one single person, Rafe included, moved to Greater Vancouver to get away from it all.

The proper method for answering these questions in a serious way is a comprehensive benefit-cost analysis, conducted by qualified economists and engineers. This type of research costs serious money, and is never done in B.C. because the policy makers and opinion makers don't want a bunch of god-damned eggheads getting in the way of doing business. And that goes for both sides in the Gateway debate. The opponents would no more allow a benefit cost calculation to determine what the outcome ought to be that would the road building lobby.

And the same goes for all the useless but tremendously expensive LRT projects that have been built or are under construction in the GVRD, they have never been evaluated either. The politicians don't want to know what the real numbers are for fear they would undermine their decisions. And the hotline hosts and pundits aren't interested either.

Economic "development" in BC

Rafe Mair wrote

" It's assumed by Premier Campbell that economic progress is always good. This is a typical Chamber of Commerce/Board of Trade approach to life. "If you don't have progress," goes the refrain, "your economy decays and we'll all be in the poorhouse". "

I agree strongly with Rafe Mair that we need to resist being blindsided by this kind of "logic.

It invariably involves a a very simply and badly-defined sort of "economic progress".

Any good accountant can tell the difference between cash generated by liquidating assets and cash generated by utilizing assets constructively to add real value.

Good economists should be able to tell "real development" from increased monetary activity that creates the appearance of prosperity but in fact degrades natural, and community capital assets.

There are, nowadays, economists who can do that. They are called "ecological economists".

Unfortunately, what most politicians and bureaucrats learned and retained (and probably even still sincerely believe in) are the platitudes of standard "pre-ecological" economics.

Unfortunately also, a few too many members of the voting public find the whole subject too arcane and intimidating and, as result, concede the argument to the "development lobbies" without any real resistance.

My suggestion to skeptics - "Trust your instincts" - if it looks like its a project that disturbs nature and communities to produce some quick cash for those building it, and at most, for a handful of others, it probably is. The chances that projects like that contribute to real enduring economic prosperity for anyone, are very slim.

A good economic development project enhances human skills, innovates, and creates more useful output (not disposable junk) with the SAME or FEWER inputs from nature. It ECONOMISES on inputs from nature. Ideally, it actually invests in, restore and increases the vitality of natural ecosystems. Turning nature into waste more rapidly than we do already is not economic development at all.

Michael Barkusky