Editor:
I am writing this letter to respond to numerous stories that are affecting 性视界传媒 as a whole.
鈥� The stories about school district wages and the struggles of support staff: To start, $242,666.00 is a phenomenally high wage for anyone, I hope this person really does work hard instead of sitting on their golden throne. The struggles of the support staff would decrease with more staff to assist.
But where are we going to get the money for new schools to be built? Where can these schools be built? How about the roads required to get to these schools?
With the city growing at such a phenomenal rate these days, our traffic now on the main routes and the feeder routes is virtually at a gridlock. Never mind the construction woes of the new rapid transit line. The issues at hand are building roadways that exist now wider, and new roads should be expanded to handle future volumes of traffic.
鈥� The new Pattullo Bridge replacement: I do agree with Mayor Brenda Locke on the absurdity of only having four lanes being built. It should have been expanded to six lanes from the initial drawing board rendering.
I think that if you remove the wide multi-use paths on either side of the bridge, you could create an extra lane that could serve as an overflow lane. Sort of like the Massey Tunnel. Depending on traffic flows in the morning and afternoon rushes. How many pedestrians and cyclists do they think are going to traverse the bridge anyway? But, one of the other issues is with the City of New Westminster quashing the extra infrastructure through their fair city.
鈥� Population density and its effect on a lot of items: The good thing for this city is that with more people moving here, the city will make an exponentially vast amount of money just in house taxes. If you build 250 new homes, that puts one million dollars into the pot. That is factoring today's property tax at roughly $4,000 per house.
But, where oh where are those houses going to be built? Will we lose agricultural lands, maybe. With that loss alone we become more reliant on foreign foods stocking our grocery shelves, which would raise food costs. Will more spaces for trucks to park be needed as the population grows? Probably. Thus taking away more land from the ALR.
More houses equals more people, which in turn require more schools needed for those people's children to get an education, thus more teachers and support staff required. And where is the money going to come from to build everything and pay the wages? Yes, you guessed right, taxes.
More roads and wider roads to accommodate the increase in traffic. More housing being built requires more trees to be cut down and removed, lessening the ability for nature to clean the air and supply oxygen back to the environment.
How about our health systems? More people means more doctors needed, we are suffering now with a lack of doctors. How about another hospital needed for the area besides the current one being built.
I really hope that the city planners think more about the requirements of the future population now and do something about it, instead of waiting for problems to arise. I don't have the answers, I am simply asking the questions and offering some thoughts.
Michael Neubert, 性视界传媒
