The Editor:
I have been a resident of New Westminster for almost 10 years now.
Initially, the move was prompted by convenience, but over time I have grown to love the city, with its historic architecture, Queens Park and riverside walkways; “the city has character” has been my motto, it just needs time to prosper.
Certainly, changes are underway: we have a replacement bridge that should be finished by 2050 and a new community centre that would feel right at home in West Vancouver. New Westminster, in many respects, is certainly on the move.
However, instead of drawing a before-and-after comparison to somewhere like Yaletown, parts of the city continue to fester as an East Vancouver equivalent.
Nowhere is this more glaring than downtown New West, with its decrepit buildings and loitering of the drunk, drugged and homeless, where I am offered the privilege to park my car for an exorbitant $15 per day or watch as another full number 102 bus passes me by at Columbia Station after a busy day at work.
I see new apartment buildings being constructed throughout the city — except downtown along East Columbia where an influx of new construction would surely aid in its gentrification, as if the decrepit buildings that refuse to disappear are a source of pride or heritage (if it’s the latter surely there is a point where one needs to just “let it go”).
Instead, we have two enormous apartment buildings in the Quay where supporting infrastructure seems to be an afterthought — I guess I can forget about catching that bus when those behemoths have been built.
Finally, we see the push for a long overdue cessation of the train whistle and while I understand the complex nature of the work to rebuild the train crossings, no one has given me a rational explanation as to why a slow moving train needs to blare its horn repeatedly for 10+ seconds in the middle of the night. I have learned from experience that blaring my car horn repeatedly does nothing but raise the consternation of drivers around me.
I am going to assume there are some rational explanations for these and that projects are either planned or underway and I am simply not aware of them; however, as time goes by, I cannot help but feel there is something deeper going on, as if there is an underlying motivation to keep the city “demographically subdued.”
All I can say is this makes me sad, because, again, I have grown to love this city and, like all things I love, I only want what’s best for it and to see it realize its true potential.
- Mick C., New Westminster
