Thursday, April 1, 2010

Are we all Nimbys?

If I ever want to wind up my coffee buddies in the Flat Earth Society... which, being of a somewhat mischievous mindset I frequently do, all that it takes is to mention "the bridge".
My wife and I have been fortunate enough to live on Vancouver Island since retiring some 15 years ago. Our little paradise just happens happens to be the largest island on the Pacific coast of North America, less than 2 hours by ferry, or 15 minutes by commuter plane from the the metropolis of Greater Vancouver, Canada's trade gateway to the Pacific.
The bridge to which I refer would be a land link between the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and Vancouver Island, and it would free our 3/4 million Island castaways from the drudgeries of long ferry terminal parking-lot wait times, dependency on the weather, obstreperous ferry worker unions, airport security and other such unconscionable inconveniences.
After all in 1997 they opened the Confederation Bridge as an extension of the Trans-Canada Highway between the Provinces of New Brunswick and the sparsely populated (150,000) Prince Edward Island, making travel throughout the Canadian Maritimes substantially more convenient. It took a decade to build that billion dollar, curved, 12.9 kilometre (8 mile) long bridge, the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water, and it endures today as one of Canada’s top engineering achievements of the 20th century. 
The Confederation Bridge
According to the 40% of the PEI population who voted against that bridge's development, the sky was going to fall and their island was going to sink under the weight of the influx of mainland invaders.
Of course that hasn't happened yet, but it surely would if they were ever to open such an engineering masterpiece between the BC mainland and our Pacific island paradise... at least according to my friends in the flat earth society.

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