Nicholas Heather The thing that gets me most about the anti-bridge folks, is that they also tend to be the green folks. This makes no sense to me, as the ferry chows down on an unbelievable amount of diesel every day. I cant remember the stats, but I called BC Ferries once to ask, and was appalled at the amount. A bridge requires no fuel at all, except during the initial building of it, and what it takes to maintain it, of course. Being serviced by a bridge does not mean that the island is suddenly going to turn into Surrey, which is what people seem to fear. The Island would not cease to be an island. It would be an island with a bridge, instead of an island with a ferry. PEI is still an island. The Islands Trust would still be in place to oversee development etc. Sure, the island would change a bit, but change is part of life, and is unavoidable. The island is going to continue to change regardless of the primary mode of transport to get here. Our way of life is currently sustained by a finite supply of fossil fuel, which is what the ferry uses to go back and forth between our island, and the big island. Its getting very expensive to run, and thats going to continue to change, but not for the better. Eventually, as with all other fossil fuel based forms of transport, it wont be viable anymore. The anti-bridge argument sort of reminds me of the folks who didnt want to spend money on the new firehall. People keep talking about how much its going to cost now, rather than looking at the need, and what makes the most long term sense, and in this case, the most environmental sense. The ferry is not going to decrease in price. Ever. It doesnt matter how many letters or emails you write, or how many protests you organize (unless those protests become economically or politically disruptive of course). The best anyone could hope for is that theres another price freeze, which still leaves the ferry prohibitively expensive, except for those of us with the means to pay for it. I put $105 on my card per month, and then I carefully plan the three or so car and driver trips, and however many footy trips, that gets me, and I consider myself one of the fortunate ones. The other possibility is that a new government would do a roll back, or maybe even a complete restructure, but that still doesnt deal with the environmental impact of the ferry, versus very little with a bridge. As with most other issues in our society, we need to stop focusing only on the short term, and start looking at what makes the most sense long term. Just because weve been doing it one way for a long time, doesnt necessarily mean thats the best way of doing it, and in my opinion, the ferry doesnt work well anymore, for a variety of reasons
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:42:14 +0000
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