Dear Editor: Say goodbye to the neighbourhoods you're describing. Your series on our neighbourhoods raises many rich memories. However, the reality is that these neighbourhoods are being overrun by commuter traffic. Cars scurry through these neighbourhoods, trying to escape the main roads that are clogged with trucks avoiding the Port Mann Bridge toll.
I took a picture on Friday afternoon around 3 p.m. It's looking up McBride from outside the Justice Institute.
Children, walking home from the three local schools, were crossing at Eighth Avenue and McBride Boulevard, and at Eighth Avenue and Cumberland Street.
I cringed as I heard brakes straining to hold back their truck and trailers, as these children crossed in front of them, oblivious to danger just meters from them.
So sadly, our neighbourhoods are disappearing. They are becoming thoroughfares for commuter cars trying to avoid main roads. When we have to shop, pick up our kids, or go to after-school activities, first we must watch out for commuters speeding through the neighbourhood. Then we have to squeeze into the line of tractor-trailers crawling along Eighth Avenue (and of course McBride).
When you write about our neighbourhood five years from now it'll be about what New Westminster used to be before it was destroyed by traffic "just passing through."
I'm frustrated - no, I'm mad, because I feel helpless, watching this change unfold before my eyes in neighbourhoods with so many wonderful memories.
Tony Williams
New Westminster
