Forget exhaust-spewing SUVs and industrial stacks pumping God only knows what into the atmosphere. A major cause of global warming Monday was the hot air at Vernon city hall. Considerable debate over the transportation plan heated up chambers for much of the four-hour meeting. And things really started to smolder when Councillors Juliette Cunningham and Barry Beardsell took on each other. “When I have colleagues on council who don’t believe in climate change, I have concerns,” said Cunningham, who wanted a commitment that everything possible would be done to cut down on traffic and the need for more roads. “For people to say it’s not happening, they are in la la land.” Cunningham never specifically identified Beardsell by name, but you know who she meant, especially after he joined the fray.
“This isn’t a debate about that goofy (Al) Gore. This is about a 
long-range plan,” he said of establishing potential transportation routes. But the most ironic part of all of this is that Cunningham and Beardsell ultimately teamed up to support preserving a corridor for the controversial western bypass. And that alone shows the entire complexity of climate change. Global warming is a fact that we can’t ignore, and if our children and grandchildren are to have much of a life, we need to change our habits. However, the reality is that so much of our society — from transporting commercial goods to delivering services to the needy — depends on vehicles. And despite skyrocketing fuel prices, that’s not likely to change until the very last drop of dinosaur juice has been pumped out of the ground. The other complex issue is where a future bypass should go. Determining such a route would be easy if we were working with a clean slate, but we’re not. No matter whether it’s the western bypass or the eastern bypass, there are well-established neighbourhoods, farm land and natural ecosystems — the very things that give the Vernon area its special identity. It shouldn’t shock anyone that council is split as there are no easy solutions. And deciding Monday to consult with the Ministry of Transportation was only an expedient way to end a painful, difficult discussion that was going nowhere. But the ministry will have no magic bullet, and ultimately council will have to make some kind of decision at its next meeting June 9. If it doesn’t, there will be a major hole in the official community plan review, which is almost completed.
I bring no constructive solutions to the table, but the option I keep leaning towards is absolutely no bypass at all. Is it ideal? No? But the sooner that we accept that 32nd Street is always going to be the main arterial highway through town and we find ways around it, the better. And that can only happen if some of the short and medium-term goals of the transportation plan are enacted. Those include substantial financial resources going towards transit, cycling paths and walking trails. Vehicles are always going to be a reality, but alternate modes of transportation would be viable in many cases, especially for office workers. What would also help is extending some roads, such as 48th Avenue to Old Kamloops Road, to take traffic off 32nd Street.
One part of the plan that I’m not crazy about is extending 27th Street to Highway 97 by the army camp. That would place downtown between two highways and make revitalization a distant dream. In the end, though, there are no easy solutions and that means the hot air will continue to flow at city hall.
1 comment:
The hot air is all coming from Coldstream Rolke. On the one hand he talks against extending 27th up the hillside because downtown is then sandwiched between two highways and can not be revitalized. He also rambles on about 32st bearing all the traffic through the town for ever in its present narrow corridor(a corridor that the City has no control over whatsoever ie present gridlock and lack of left turn lanes). Mr Rolke-you should become a reporter instead of telling us your foolish ideas.
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